Seekers
by Rialys
Summary: In an alternative universe, the hanging of three Adepts has life-changing consequences for several others. It also begins the downfall of an ancient empire...
1. Orphans

**Camelot owns Golden Sun! I don't own any of these characters or places –**** it's just an interpretation of them! (Okay, a weird one, but still.)**

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Hi…Rialys again, somehow getting my act together with fanfiction. Thanks to everyone who had a look at the last piece of work I did (and BIG thanks to those who reviewed ). I've spent too long stewing on holiday in Scotland with no computer access, so now I'm going to get writing again.

Yes, this is probably going to end up being weird. The characters are probably going to act out of character. The romance bit won't show up till later. But never mind that; here's chapter one. Oh, and 'henge' (as in 'Stonehenge') is an old English word for 'gallows'.

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**Edit, August 21****st****, 2011:** Well, elements of these earlier chapters have started to bug me, so I'm reuploading them with edits and, hopefully, improvements. Not much will change, but hopefully it will make things a little less confusing in the first few chapters. **These updates will be irregular, guys! Sorry if things start getting messy.**

Shout-out of many thanks to jollygreendragon for giving me a couple of pointers on this story!**  
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Orphans

The scaffolding of the henge had been put together in a matter of hours. The wood was cheap, common pine, chosen for the sole reason that the scent of the wood had the possibility of drowning out the stench of the scaffolding's purpose. _Of course_, the short Jupiter Adept watching from under the cover of the nearby forest thought, _Pine's always used to remind the Venus Clan how low they are to the Mars Clan_. He watched, the blood vessels in his throat twisting into a large knot, as three of his friends were led out onto the scaffolding, unrecognisable by their black-hooded faces.

One of his companions gripped his shoulder, her lip quivering as she watched the grim, silent audience of the Venus Clan. "Why did it come to this, Seer?" she whispered, her voice cracking.

"Wings, be quiet or they'll hear us!" the boy called Seer hissed back, meeting her brimming pale blue eyes with his own lifeless purple ones. "It's not our fault."

"It's starting," the older man behind them murmured. "Wings, get a grip."

The Mercury girl bit down on her lip hard and looked back at the scaffolding, blurry through her tears and loose strands of blue hair. She could still recognise the older members of their squad by their clothes and heights. Two men, followed by a shorter woman, stood on the wood that was wet from the rain. Despite the coarse hoods, she could see that their heads were all held high enough to be proud that their time was coming to an end. They would become martyrs for the squad. No…they would become martyrs for the entire resistance.

The knot in Seer's throat tightened, almost throttling him, as he stared at the five people walking onto another platform close to the henge. _So, the rumours are true_, he murmured internally. _The Lords and Ladies do appear at the executions._

It was the young woman on the end of the line of Ladies and Lords who strode towards the edge of the platform with a crisp roll of parchment tightly clutched in one hand. With a cursory glance at first the crowd, then the henge, she snapped the scroll open briskly and began to read the dark green sentences scribed on it. She opened her mouth as wide as she could to amplify her voice. Not that it would be necessary, when the crowd was as utterly, dismally silent as it was. Nonetheless, it was expected of the Third Lady of Mars to be completely above her inferiors. _You can't get more inferior than the Venus Clan_, she thought.

"The three members of the Venus Clan before you, Jasper, Kyle and Dora, have been found guilty of high treason to the empire by involving themselves with the rebellious group known as the Seekers. Their punishment for this crime," she continued, raising her gingery eyebrows imperiously, "is to be hung by the neck until they are dead." With this, the Third Lady let the scroll snap closed and turned to the black-garbed man on the scaffolding. "Commence the execution!"

Wings couldn't bear to watch as the man pulled on the lever for the trapdoors. Burying her face in her pale hands and letting her tears drip through her fingers onto the loamy ground did little to help her. The sound of death reached her ears, drilling through her skull into her mind like a crossbow bolt through plate armour. As a healer – an Imilian healer, an Angelical! – she knew that death always found its way in, and was used to dealing with it. But for members of her squad to be executed…

She felt Seer put an arm around her to try to comfort her, and their leader rubbing her shoulder.

The leader had the ability to keep an eye on everything. So, even as he was conscious of Wings' distress, he was still watching the three hanging bodies of his former comrades be cut down and handed over to the First Lord's famous incineration squad. Inside, he seethed. _Since when was there not a time that Venus Adepts returned to the earth?_ he thought bitterly, yellow eyes narrowed. He flinched; a shard of memory had stabbed him.

Between himself and Seer, they managed to bring the desperately sobbing Wings back to her feet and walk away into the forest. The leader looked at the blond boy. "Seer, don't forget: we have to get that letter from their house."

"But Mia…"

"_Seer_, I'm not fool enough to enter the Venus sector during the daytime. You're going later. And you of all people should know to not use your real names outside of the ship."

* * *

Everything was smoothly under control when the Mars Lords and Ladies left for the long, if refreshing, walk back to the Mars Clan enclosure and their palace. The First Lady sniffed at the backs of the Venus Adepts that were leaving the clearing, before turning her head and smiling at the youngest of the Ladies. "Excellent projection for your first time, Lady Kay."

"Thank you, Lady Menardi," the Third Lady replied, nodding respectfully to the older woman. "I am glad to serve the Clan."

"I'm glad you got my old job," the Second Lord grumbled. "I hated doing that."

"Agatio, is there any job you don't hate?" the Second Lady said curtly, glaring at the heavily-armoured man. "No, there isn't. So shut up and hurry back to that torture chamber of yours." She glanced at Kay. "Yes, Lady Kay. Your performance was more than satisfactory. And the eyebrows were meticulously timed."

Kay flushed slightly from the praise. Ha! Even Karst couldn't find any fault in her work, for once! Never mind the woman's hint of sarcasm. "Milady, I have only studied my arts from the very best, which is to say yourself and Lady Menardi."

Inspecting the straps on his immaculate armour, the First Lord didn't bother to look at Kay when he spoke to her. "I expect no less from our chief interrogator. Although…" At this Saturos did meet Kay's eyes "…I did expect a little more to come out of the interrogations. We still only have sketchy notes on the Seekers, and nothing like enough of them."

"I am incredibly sorry, Lord Saturos. Unfortunately, they all proved incredibly stubborn, even after torture. And that Jasper had the slashed circle mark; indubitably, Milord knows what that means." Kay hadn't, at the time of the interrogation. Now, after serious research in the archives, she knew more than well enough to never go near a slashed circle Venus Adept.

Menardi placed a red-scaled hand on Kay's shoulder. "Lady Kay, I personally expected no less from Seekers. You did well to discover their true names and the truth that they belonged to the group. And now," she added, "Let's get back, before the idiot guards raze the palace to the ground."

"Talking of razing," Saturos said, "am I allowed to send the squad round to remove the Seekers' cottage yet? The brats can find somewhere else to go. Unless you want them questioned, Lady Kay?"

Kay allowed herself a genteel half-smile as she nodded to the First Lord. "I would like to talk to the three orphans before something tragic happens to them. Lady Karst, may I borrow one of your investigators?" She noticed the querying glare on Karst's stern face. "The cottage may contain other valuable information about the Seekers, and Jasper mentioned a letter during his interrogation." _Obviously. You didn't pay attention to anything I said at our last meeting, did you? Ugh._

The Second Lady nodded. "I'll send Jenna round in the morning."

* * *

By the twilit end of the day, the entire Venus Clan had 'surreptitiously' sneaked glances at the three teenagers making their way towards the rundown cottage they knew as home. The execution had at least been clean, and fairly swift, but that wasn't enough to stop the Clan muttering about it – and whether the children left behind by the newly dead were dangerous to go near or not. Jasper's son was already similar to a bramble patch when it came to people he didn't really know or trust. Like as not, now the boy would be even worse.

"Where are they?"

"Over there – can't you see them? Two boys and a girl."

"The poor things. I hope they'll be alright."

"Poor things? Thought you couldn't stand them."

"Did you know Jasper was slashed circle? What's the betting that –"

"Shut up and get lost!" one of the boys yelled. A pair of dark, stony eyes glared at the handful of people following the three orphans. "All of you!" he added, narrowing his eyes until they were slices of angry boulders. Breath catching in his throat, he turned from the gossips irately and strode towards the dilapidated cottage.

Hearing the latch click shut, the slightly shorter boy looked up at his fuming friend. "Hey, Felix…if it's any help, I don't like it either."

Felix sighed at the smiling boy. "Yeah, but you're too docile to get angry. Where's Sheba?"

"In our room."

They both became incredibly interested in the state of the floor. Eventually, the younger of them gulped, licked his lips, and risked speaking again. "She must've…well, she doesn't get on with the other girls anyway, so…she…"

"Isaac, don't start. I hate the fact we can't help her during the day, when she's picked on most. Some good we are at keeping promises, now we've both got to work full-time just to stay alive." Felix sat on a stool by the fire, ripping the yellow band from his ponytail and roughly combing out his hair with his fingers. He hung his head, letting the dark brown strands of hair hide his face from Isaac. "I've already betrayed Dad."

"Why do you always see the negatives?"

"Because most of the time we end up stuck with the negatives. Or did you forget we're Venus Clan, Isaac?" He sighed again, turning his head to look at the flames that danced in the battered hearth, the light claiming the bare walls of the room for its own. Just like Mars had eventually grown so powerful it had taken over all of the Clans and ruled them. "I promised I'd keep Sheba safe."

Isaac rolled his eyes and tugged off his scarf, exposing the ring of pale scar tissue at the base of his throat. "We're doing our best," he pointed out. "Besides, she can take care of herself. They can't use psynergy on her, 'cos she's not aligned to a Clan, and she's quicker than most. You just like being a pessimist."

"Shut up. I found her, so I'm responsible for her." Felix looked up at Isaac, who was smiling at the ceiling and toying with his long scarf. The older boy shook his head in despair. "Carry on like that and I'll strangle you with that bloody scarf, one of these days."

They glared at each other for a bit, trying hard not to laugh (hollowly) at the pointlessness of arguing with each other. It always ended up the same way: there would be a disagreement, and then they'd reach a point when they couldn't say anything. The subject would change; time would move on. That was the way it had been ever since they'd first known each other. That was the way it would stay. Or would it, now their lives had changed from being decent to harsh?

Before the night their parents had been taken away for questioning, the evenings had been a time to relax, to be happy with the family. After that night, from the moment the sharp-tongued Second Lady of Mars had bundled the three adults out into the cold, it simply wasn't the same. Sheba, normally a fairly talkative girl amongst her family, barely spoke. Isaac retreated into a happy imaginary world of his own behind his deceptively blue eyes more often. Felix had already been incredibly protective of his friend and adoptive sister; now he could barely stand people he didn't know looking at any of the three of them.

"Whatever," Isaac eventually said, rolling his eyes again. "Your threats have no substance. Look, if everyone's going to die, then let 'em have some fun while they're alive. And – ack!"

"What was that about no substance?" a girl's voice teased as the scarf was wrapped tighter around Isaac's neck. "And what's for dinner?"

Felix muttered under his breath, "If you actually strangle him, Sheba, he can't tell you." He risked looking up at the two of them and realised with shock that a smile was yanking at his lips impatiently. Isaac's face was gradually turning into an overripe plum with a spiky mould of blond hair on top of it. Sheba was looking devious, something she hadn't risked for weeks, while she continued to carry out Felix's threat. "You do realise he can't breathe?" Felix commented.

"Oops."

_She's faking it. That smile's fake. Underneath it, she's probably still trying not to cry like she did this morning when she almost broke down on top of us. She cried so hard…I wanted to cry with her._

Isaac bolted from the room the moment he was free from the unusually deadly grasp of his precious scarf, leaving a grinning Sheba with her adoptive brother. The fourteen-year-old carefully folded up the long stretch of yellow material and left it lying on what was left of the table after Lady Karst's visit. Sitting in front of the fire with her legs crossed, Sheba gazed at the flickering image of the fire's shadow while she waited for the question she knew would come. _It's my fault for saying nothing_, she told herself. _He worries so much…_

"What did they say?"

She stared at her hands, clasped tightly together in her lap. "Nothing. But they looked at me like I was some sort of pretty poison. You know? The look that means they're interested but they're frightened of you. So no real change." She slid her eyes sideways to glance at her brother, swallowing nervously when she noticed how his left hand had formed a tight fist on his knee.

"I should be glad you've not been in another fight."

"If you worry too much, you'll end up sounding like someone's wife," Sheba retorted. Or rather, she tried to. Her thoughts caught up with her mouth before the second part of her sentence could come out, and she choked on half of the words. The painful reel of the day's memories inside her head forced her into seeing everything about the morning over again, repeated in monochrome with occasional blotchy splashes of colour.

Dora had been so kind to all of them. She had always cared for them, even though Felix and Sheba weren't relatives or were in more trouble than ever. And she was dead. Like Kyle. Like Jasper. And it looked like there was absolutely no reason for the three of them to have been taken from their home, interrogated, tortured, and finally hanged.

Salt water trickled gently down Sheba's face. The week's worth of grime coating her cheeks was unable to stop it. Her hands couldn't. The thin, ragged material that passed for her skirt only made her knees get wet from the tears that soaked through it. _Does the Mars Clan only live to persecute the Venus Clan?_ she thought. _Just to make sure Venus never can be happy, does Mars like to kill the Clan's people? Or – or – or is it that Mars wants to hurt _us_ because of something?_

Isaac entered the room, a loaf of hard bread in his hands, to find Sheba firmly clinging to her brother while she sobbed into his shoulder. Noticing his folded-up scarf, Isaac knotted it around his neck, put the bread down, and cast another glance at his friends. In the firelight, their dark silhouette was more than enough to show their emotions. The same emotions that tortured him. Loss. Anger. Pain.

"Are you so docile you can't have feelings anymore?" Felix said quietly, ignoring the wet lines on his face as he caught Isaac's eyes and held them. "Or are you just making things worse for yourself?"

None of them ate that evening. Sharing their misery was more important.

* * *

The timber planks of the deck were darkening in the downpour that started several minutes before Wings, Seer and their leader reached the ship. Seer glared up at the bruise-coloured sky before sighing and glancing at the older man. "Mariner, you can't be serious about sending us out in this weather."

"We don't have any other choice. Tomorrow there'll be Mars Adepts all over the Venus sector, and we'll have no chance of getting Jasper's letter." Mariner's startling yellow eyes focused on Wings. "You'll have the cover of the weather and the dark tonight, so Cloak will be even more effective than normal. You should reach the house by dawn."

Once out of the intense downpour that had become an even heavier torrent of stinging raindrops, the three Adepts made their way along the corridor and into one of the many rooms. Maps and sea charts festooned the walls; several small tables were cluttered neatly with an assortment of collapsed telescopes, compasses, paperweights, more maps, and the occasional barometer. In the centre of the room a polished circular table stood on a multi-patterned rug. Spread out over it was yet another large map, marked in places with red ink. Thick black lines sprawled over the heavy parchment, depicting with great accuracy the four main sectors of the area: the palace and the wealthy city surrounding it; two smaller, neat suburbs; the quarries, fields of crops, and the rundown scattering of cottages of the Venus sector.

"Seer, Wings, you should already know the route to the house blindfolded. When you get there, there should be a letter addressed to either me or the Revealer somewhere. Make sure you find it without making the three who should be there wake up."

Wings gazed sadly at the map, tracing the red-inked route with her fingers. "What if they do?"

"We'll just have to put them back to sleep," Seer replied, still glowering out of the porthole at the rain. "This weather might be useful for our purposes, but I might shrink if I get wet…"

"Seer, how about you cut the melodrama about being short?"

"I haven't grown in the last three months!" Seer moaned, hunching his shoulders. "My sister was horrid about me being a _dwarf_ when I was little. It was awful. You think I want her to be right?"

Wings cut him off from getting tetchier about his height quickly, just to avoid the cleaning up after lightning bolts flash-fried another table. "Yes, but the Revealer isn't like that at all these days, and people don't shrink because they've been exposed to water." She smiled at him. "Your height doesn't matter, Ivan. Let's get some rest and set off in a couple of hours. The sooner we get that letter, the quicker the search for the Acolytes can continue." She patted Seer's shoulder. "Come on. It'll be warm before you know it."

* * *

Sheba blinked tiredly at the ceiling and rubbed crusts of sleep from her eyes. The fire had burned low, so now the incandescent embers were all that made it possible to see in the otherwise black of night. Sitting up, Sheba felt the cold air nip at her bare arms and legs, and she shivered. _Why was I sleeping there?_ she wondered, before noticing Felix and Isaac sleeping on either side of her. _Oh. I remember._

She screwed up her face to stop more tears from falling. The three of them had done plenty of crying for one night.

The cold was probably going to get to all of them soon, so Sheba headed upstairs and into the cramped room they normally shared to find the thin blankets they tried to sleep under at night. As she pulled the blanket off the third straw mattress, something pale hidden in the straw caught her attention. Her inquisitive fingers prised an oblong of rough, grainy paper from the mattress; it was sealed firmly with marine-blue wax. Turning it over in her hands, she peered at the black squiggles on it in a shaft of moonlight coming through the broken shutters. They looked like writing.

_I'll have to __get Felix to read it for me…_ Sheba thought._ Huh…I really should've tried harder with my reading when I was younger. But what's this doing in our mattresses? _She frowned at the envelope for a few moments, then shrugged. _It could be anything. Not much I can do about it but get it read…_

Tucking the letter down the front of her shirt, she picked up the blankets and slipped back downstairs into the main room. She had to try sleeping again if she was going to keep up at work tomorrow.


	2. Letter

Hi…Rialys again, somehow getting her act together with fanfiction

Okay, so chapter one was kind of short, but that always seems to happen for me…but whatever. More Adepts show up in this chapter…so don't ask why people like Jenna and Garet had no mention in chapter one…

Might not be posting for a bit after this, 'cos I've got work to do…

…I accidentally forgot the disclaimer last chapter (bad Rialys!). Camelot owns Golden Sun!

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Letter

The sun hadn't risen yet as Kay slowly levered herself out of the bath and reached for the dusty grey towel on the floor of her bathroom. She carefully dried the heavy, fragranced soapsuds from her hair and wrapped the towel around her body, stepping out of the tub and onto the painted tiles as she did so. Candlelight glimmered from the pillars of sweet-scented beeswax set into the small alcoves in the walls, and it glinted on the tiles made wet by Kay's footsteps across the room. Moonlight that was calming after the terrible rain of the earlier part of the night radiated through the open, arched window, spilling over the room and teasing the backs of Kay's legs, or making her hair glitter where she'd missed some of the suds.

She wrenched the door open and stepped onto the plush carpet of her bedroom. It could have easily been mistaken for a tropical greenhouse; plants and flowers, in terracotta pots, could be seen on almost every surface. There were no candles, so in places the pristine leaves and blooms made the room seem to have sprouted a jungle in the depths of night.

Kay opened her mouth to call for her maid before remembering that most people would be asleep at three o'clock in the morning. Sighing, the Mars Adept made her way to her bed, where her white nightgown was pristinely laid out. _Ugh. I'll have to sleep through till noon at this rate,_ she thought tiredly. _But I've also got to get my hands on that letter before Saturos torches the cottage, so I've got to brief Jenna…_

With the towel still clutched to her body, she rifled through the trunk at the end of her bed and pulled out her most comfortable clothes. Official robes and armour were all very well, but they were leaden when the wearer was tired and weren't necessary for a quick meeting with an associate. Especially not at three in the morning. In Kay's opinion, it would be utterly pointless. So her long, deep green skirt and white cotton blouse would do. _It's not like Mars Adepts get cold all that easily – and definitely not the Third Lady._ She tugged the clothes on, tying up the laces on her shirt, and slipped her feet into fur-lined slippers.

Something had been bothering her since the three interrogations she'd personally made over the past couple of weeks. The faces of the three Venus Adepts had somehow been familiar. Familiar, when those of the Mars Clan only entered the Venus enclosure when on business. The last time Kay had gone, she'd been…nine? Ten? Either way, it had been years since she'd even thought consciously about Venus Adepts. So why had the faces of Kyle, Dora and Jasper been so weirdly familiar? Jasper in particular.

Kay yawned and dismissed the thought, padding into the main chamber of her tower rooms. There were fewer plants there and more candles, but this was where she conducted most of her business. Meetings with the Adepts of Mars, Jupiter and Mercury under her command took place there, across the severe mahogany table.

"Come in," Kay called when she heard a knock on the door.

Instead of the one person expected, there were two. The girl with the long, red-brown ponytail nodded respectfully as she entered. "Good morning, Lady Kay."

"Jenna, you don't have to be so polite," the voice from the taller figure said. "Mornin', sis. What d'you want?"

"You to go away before you break my pot of geraniums again," Kay replied, glaring at her younger brother. "You're still so going to pay for that, Garet. Just you wait."

Garet flinched at the threat, provoking a giggle from his companion. "Hey, K-kay, aren't you meant to be nice to your little brother in the mornings?"

Shaking her head, Jenna sighed and looked up at his worried face. "You're a lot bigger than her," she pointed out. "And those geraniums were the ones she'd been looking after for three years." The two girls exchanged glances. "Maybe I should help out with your punishment."

"Why is it everyone gets mad at me?" Garet despaired.

Kay gestured for the two of them to sit down at the table while she seated herself on a comfier chair at the other end. "Now then – Garet, stay still!" she snapped, ignoring the fact that her brother had been carefully manoeuvring a bowl of pansies so it was nowhere near him. "Jenna, did Lady Karst tell you anything about why I wanted to see you?"

"Something about a letter," Jenna replied with a frown. "Um, not really."

"It's 'cos of those people that were executed yesterday," Garet said cheerfully. "Menardi and Karst were talking about how one of 'em mentioned some letter to do with the Seekers." He gulped when he noticed the looks on the girls' faces. "I'll shut up."

Kay exhaled through her nose. "What Garet's said is basically right. My interrogations of those three Venus Adepts brought up something about a letter. Jenna, I want you to find it for me – well, that and anything else in their house that could be linked to the Seekers."

"A letter, and anything suspicious," Jenna murmured to herself. "Okay. Is there anything else?"

Garet grinned. "The –"

"Garet, behave!" his sister snapped. She waited for him to meekly disappear into silence. "Yes. There should be three children – about our age – left behind. Evaluate them in case they're involved with the Seekers too."

After risking a glance at Garet, currently the essence of boredom, Jenna nodded. "I should be able to manage that. And Garet's coming along as a guard." She pulled a face. "I don't need a guard. I can look after myself perfectly well."

"It pays to be careful," Kay replied grimly. "Now go, before the First Lord decides he doesn't care about what I want and sends out the incineration squad."

Garet looked up from the table and frowned with bemusement. "Uh, sis? Where are we going?"

"You eavesdropped on Menardi and Karst and don't know?" Jenna exclaimed incredulously. "It's possibly the most obvious thing about this whole mess." She sighed with irritation when her friend's expression stayed vacant. "Why are you so dense sometimes? Venus sector!"

Kay watched the two of them go, listening with half an ear to the argument that broke out and blossomed in the early morning air. She yawned, not bothering to cover her mouth with a hand, and tried to pretend that talking to her brother and his friend was almost all that prevented her from becoming as chilly as the other Lords and Ladies.

* * *

Seer breathed with relief and pulled down his leaf-green hood. With the rain over, he could avoid the possibility of shrinking like one of his shirts had once. Concentrating momentarily, he made the area he was in give up any secrets it had. "Nothing here, Wings," he called over his shoulder quietly.

"Let's keep moving," Wings replied, still glancing around cautiously. She nervously rubbed a lock of her light blue hair between her fingers before picking up her staff again. "We're close now."

"This letter had better be worth getting soaked for," Seer grumbled. As he turned to step back onto the path hidden cunningly by the dense forest undergrowth, something up ahead flickered, grabbing onto his attention. _A light?_ he thought. _That's weird…the Clan doesn't normally get up to work till at least six…_ He dismissed the thought as the light disappeared. _Okay. Maybe it was just my imagination._

Wings brushed dripping strands of her hair out of her eyes and took the lead again. She hadn't been bothered by the rain; after the drought of the previous month, the water was perfect to soothe the sunburned land. Mariner shared her thoughts on the matter, even if he'd taken his time to tell her. Then again, Mariner would think that anything that was able to relieve the pressure on the Venus Clan was good. Wings had known him for a long time, longer than she'd known Seer, but still only partially understood why Mariner so desperately wanted the suffering of the three lower Clans to be prevented.

The two Adepts reached the cottage within ten minutes, and paused to prepare themselves for entry. It wasn't the first time they'd worked without Mariner present, but they were slightly nervous nonetheless. The duo had never worked alone without at least one of their deceased squad members to receive them at the door. Wings made her lip bleed to prevent tears spilling down her cheeks at the thought.

As Seer found a suitable window, he caught himself thinking again about Mariner's parting warning. _Be careful. The two boys might not be happy to receive visitors._ Flexing his fingers, the Jupiter Adept shut his eyes and blew the thought away to the back of his head. Breathing deeply to calm down, he reached into his core to tug his psynergetic abilities up to the front of his mind, where he would be able to utilise them quickly. "Whirlwind," he murmured.

Wings was always fascinated by the change that came over the short boy every time he tapped his psynergy. He suddenly appeared calmer, more mature. A mysterious sheen would coat his eyes if he opened them. A strange serenity she had seen nowhere else would surround him, and even if there was no wind to speak of he would become windswept. As she watched, the shutters blew open inwards and Seer dropped his extended arm to his side, his magical transformation vanishing.

"We're in," he told her. He slipped through the window like the most agile of acrobats and stuck his hands back out to help Wings get up and in.

Once inside, they stared in wonder at the room they used to know well. The table was badly burned, and half of the ornaments that used to decorate the room were missing, leaving behind only the collections of strange flowers on the dusty surfaces. Even the floor had been scorched. Anything of value was gone.

Curled up under a couple of thin blankets in front of the fire's dying embers was a girl in her early teens. Wings knelt next to her, inspecting her face and hair. She glanced up at Seer. "She looks a bit like you."

"We're not here to do that!" Seer hissed in reply. He looked around nervously, his hand resting on the thin blade at his waist. "Shouldn't there be others here, Wings? You've got to Cloak us before we're seen!"

Sighing, Wings covered the blonde girl more snugly with the blankets and stood up. "Seer, calm down. At this rate it'll be your talking that gives us away." She picked her way over to the shorter boy silently, placing a gloved hand on his shoulder when she stopped. "Cloak." For a few seconds, her body pulsated with a tranquil blue light before gradually disappearing into the background, along with Seer.

"Did you hear that?" the now-invisible Seer whispered. "Sort of like a gasp…"

"Let's just search for the letter."

Seer trudged up the stairs, wary of any noise made. _Wings sure is a good searcher, but sometimes I think she forgets how dangerous this place it. Anything could be here – and I don't like how those two boys weren't with the girl._ He sighed inwardly, and pushed open one of the doors. It squeaked, almost perfectly imitating a mouse; he froze, swallowing hard and licking his lips. _What if –_

When nobody came up the stairs, Seer edged into the small room. Shafts of light streamed through holes in the thatch, patterning the slightly damp floorboards with unrecognisable designs. Seer found himself mentally yelling all the swearwords he could think of, because Cloak had no effect in patches of light and would need recasting if he stepped into one. _Damn. If they come up, they'll be able to see me! And then I'll have to make a break for it! Which probably means that – oh no, Wings…_

He tried to grab hold of his calm and his sense to steel himself. He'd be alright, as long as he kept firmly to the edges of the room, where it would be more likely for the letter to be anyway. And anyway, all he had to do was get a bit further in and cast Reveal to check if the letter was actually in the room. _It's simple_, he told himself. _I can do this, after getting through that storm._

There was a loud series of crashes and bangs from below; Seer tumbled into a shaft of light and stopped cold. The weighty knot of blood vessels returned to his throat, making breathing difficult and forcing him to take short, stream-shallow breaths as he listened in terror for anything else. A muffled few bat-like shrieks drifted into his ears. "Wings?" he whispered, his eyes darting around the room. Raising his voice, Seer tried again. "Wings? What happened?"

By lieu of reply came another series of thumping noises. Seer pushed his mop of blond hair out of his frightened eyes and forced his shaky fingers to grasp the handle of his light sword. If Wings was in trouble, he'd have to fight his way out and try to bring her with him. Drawing the sword from its sheath, Seer cautiously headed down the stairs, glancing into the shadows for whatever might have –

He was grabbed from behind by somebody taller and heavier than himself. A bare hand clamped over his mouth like the door to a prison cell, while another hand held what felt like the sharp edge of a knife to his throat. The voice that spoke was quietly commanding. "Drop the sword." Seer hesitated, and the pressure of the knife against his throat increased. "Drop it, before I forget how to control this knife."

When the blade had clattered to the bare floor, Seer was pulled into the main room. Wings was pinned to the opposite wall by the girl who had been asleep in front of the fire and a dark-haired young man who also held a knife. The Mercury Adept's face showed a well-stirred mixture of fear and anger. Like Seer, her mouth was covered by a hand.

"Looks like you were right, Sheba. They really were poking around," the boy who'd captured Seer said. "What should we do with them?"

"I want to know why a Jupiter and a Mercury were in the Venus sector," the girl replied. "Shouldn't they be in their suburbs at this time in the morning?"

The dark boy turned to look at Seer. "Whatever they're up to, they're not officials. They'd use the door." His eyes flicked back to Wings, who glared at him. "Besides, they've got weapons that don't look like they're from their sectors."

"Maybe they're doing this for a dare or something, Felix," the other boy suggested.

"Somehow, Isaac, I don't think so. They don't look like the city kids who show up every now and then."

Sheba nodded in agreement, stepping away from Wings. "They don't even have citizenship badges. They must be looking for trouble."

Wings saw her opportunity to escape and pounced on it, tearing herself from Felix's grip and wrestling her staff from Sheba's arms. She couldn't hit hard, but with any luck the extra reach she now had would be enough of an advantage over her three antagonists. The two boys looked like they could only fight at short range; the girl didn't seem to have any Clan, and therefore no psynergy, so there wasn't the threat of a mage fighter. From her position, Wings had the power to at least hit her enemies. She glanced at Seer, now trying to get away from Isaac, and swung the staff as hard as she could.

The hefty thunk on the head was enough to send Isaac reeling backwards onto the floor, completely out cold. Finally free, Seer sprang towards the door and wheeled around with both arms outstretched and his amethyst eyes blazing. The rush of psynergy he forced out of his mind made him glow a deep, rich purple as he concentrated. "Sleep!"

Wings lowered her staff when the other two had crumpled to the floor, both of them asleep. She sighed, and looked up at the light coming through the open window. "It's past dawn," she said. "Did you find anything upstairs?"

"No, I heard the noise and came to see what happened before I could find anything."

Flicking a blue lock of hair over her shoulder, Wings tried not to look disappointed. "I couldn't find anything down here. You don't think that the Mars Clan already found it, do you? Mariner will be disappointed if that's the case…" She examined each of the fallen Adepts in turn, noting how their clothes were mostly made of patches and how hollow-cheeked Sheba and Isaac looked. "The younger ones haven't eaten well recently. But that one has such sharp features it's hard to tell how hard he's been hit by hunger…" She stood up. "Let's check upstairs."

"Shh," Seer said, a finger on his lips. "Can you hear that?" he added, cupping a hand around an ear to hear better. The sounds of distant conversation wafted in on the gentle breeze that was blowing through the open window. "Someone's coming!"

"But…"

Seer ignored Wings' protests, and dragged her out of the window into the cover of the woods. "If we're caught, we're dead," he murmured to her once they were safely hidden by the leaf-laden sea of oak, elm and rowan trees. "And I can see two Mars heading for the cottage."

* * *

The sight of two Mars Adepts striding purposefully through the Venus sector at dawn was a rarity, and the early risers amongst the Venus Clan stared at the unusual pair. The girl looked determined, efficient, in charge. Her features were mostly sharp, with only her brown-red eyes hinting at a softer side to her beneath the chain mail and red-pink armour. The boy didn't look like he'd been born, more constructed; he was tall, muscular, and his hair was an array of ginger spikes that could probably be a weapon in themselves. In comparison with his companion, his face was less sharp, and he didn't move with the normal sanctimonious gait of most of his Clan.

Jenna consulted a scrap of paper tugged from a pocket. "This should be the place."

"Yeah," Garet replied, looking around the area the rundown cottage was in. The trees were tall enough to block out part of the pink-and-purple dawn light, and only small beams of faint gold shone through the canopy in places. "This looks like the place Karst was describing…"

"Oh, come on," Jenna said, snapping him out of reverie and walking up to the door. _This is my first solo assignment,_ she told herself. _I'm not letting my idiot of a friend screw it up._

The door opened with a quick shove, but Jenna's quick eyes noticed the open window nearby. She logged it into her memory quickly, before concentrating on the small room she'd entered. The smell of a dead fire permeated the air, drowning out almost everything else, but there was something underneath the fiery scent as well. What was it?

"Someone's been practising psynergy," Garet said, smashing her concentration like Kay's pot of geraniums. "That's gotta hurt. My head wants to bust whenever I practise."

"Garet, please shut up," Jenna said, looking up at her best friend. "I've got to concentrate on this, okay? This is my first solo, and I don't want to mess it up."

Garet scuffed the floor with a foot. "Sorry, Jenna. Please don't get mad at me." He looked around the room. "This place is tiny. How can the Venus Clan cope with such small places?"

"Because you don't live with them," Jenna replied. She noticed the three teenagers who lay on the cold floor, and frowned. _That's not normal, I'm certain,_ she thought, adding it to the data in her head. Smiling quickly at Garet, she headed for the stairway, stepping carefully around the unconscious boy with a yellow scarf. "You stay here, 'kay? I've got to find this letter. If this lot wake up, try to find out what madness made them sleep on the floor."

The guard watched his friend sweep around the corner and up the creaky stairs, her purple cloak billowing dramatically around her. Garet's shoulders slumped once she was gone. _Man, and I was doing so well. Now she's gonna yell at me as well as Kay._ He frowned at the three sleepers and shook his head. _Jeez, the Venus Clan's gotta be nuts to do this to themselves._ Shaking his head, he sat down on the small stool and poked at the ashes in the fireplace with a stick. They didn't show any sign of willingness to return to flame.

Garet's gaze returned to the sleepers. The one boy was some way from the other two, almost blocking the way to the stairs. _And that scarf's some kind of long,_ Garet thought. Apart from that, the only real thing to notice about the boy was that he looked friendly, even though he was asleep. Unlike that other boy – he looked to be completely the opposite. _It's probably all the dark hair,_ the Mars Adept thought. _That, and he looks…sharp. Like thorns. Well, at least the girl looks like she won't bite._

"Ooh, my head," the scarf boy said, sitting up blearily and rubbing the back of his head with a hand. "That blue chick really hit me hard." He got to his feet, if unsteadily, and grabbed onto the edge of the charred table to steady himself. Blinking a couple of times, he looked up and saw Garet. He immediately tried to straighten up and bow. "Uh…Milord…"

Garet chuckled. "I'm no Lord. Just a guard. You alright there?"

"Bit…woozy. Sorry, but I got hit on the head earlier and…" The scarf boy trailed off, blinking his deep sapphire-coloured eyes another few times. "Hope you don't mind me asking, but why's a Mars guard in the Venus sector?"

"Inspection," Garet replied dismissively. "Who're you? And how come you were on the floor?"

"I'm Isaac." Isaac rubbed his head again, having found the most tender spot where Wings had smashed her staff into him. He winced. "Ow. I got hit on the head."

"What about these others?" Garet asked amiably, nodding at the two remaining sleepers.

Isaac frowned. "…Y'know, I don't actually know…I must've got hit really hard." He finally managed to straighten up properly and walk over to his friends. He shook the girl's shoulder, his voice full of concern. "Sheba? You okay?"

Her eyes flickered open, revealing jade green irises. She slowly sat up and looked tiredly at Isaac. "Isaac?" (_Her voice is kinda slow,_ Garet thought) "So…tired…"

"I know the feeling," Isaac replied, putting his arms around her in a hug. She rested her head on his shoulder, looking like she was going back to sleep, and hugged him back. "Oh, and the Mars guard says there's an inspection on, but it's probably nothing to worry about," Isaac added cheerily.

"An inspection? Are you insane, Isaac?" the dark boy demanded, sitting bolt upright. "Hello? Remember the last inspection that happened here, when the Second Lady of Mars walked through the door and took our parents?"

Isaac pulled a face. "You really enjoy being a pessimist, don't you?"

"Shut up." Flicking his ponytail over his shoulder, the dark boy turned to face Garet. "Good morning," he said coldly, bowing politely. Garet realised, with an inward flinch, that his presumptions about the boy had been correct. He was knife-like.

"Mornin'," Garet replied, nodding as politely as the boy had bowed. "But y'know, you don't have to bow to a guard, not really…"

"Garet! You know the protocol as well as anyone!" Jenna's voice cut through the air like an arrow shower, powerful and deadly. "You're a Mars Adept, so start acting like one." She snapped her head round to fix the three Venus Clan members with an icicle glare. "Could anyone explain this?" she asked, brandishing the rapier she'd found at the bottom of the stairs after a fruitless upstairs search.

"It's a battle rapier. So what?" Garet said, standing up and shrugging.

_Elements, save me from imbecilic friends._ "So, whose is it?" Jenna said patiently, glancing sideways at Garet angrily. "And then you can tell me where it came from." _It can only possibly belong to one of them,_ she thought. Her forehead creased. _But…they don't look like they've ever seen a weapon like this. _Another thought slid into her mind gently. _Unless…it belongs to a Seeker…_

"I've never seen it, Milady," the dark boy replied. The look in his deep brown eyes agreed with his statement.

Jenna sighed. "If that's the case, then I'll be taking it with me."

"Sure, no problem!" Isaac said, grinning. He was jabbed with a sharp elbow. "Ow, Felix…that hurt. Oh. Oh, right." He turned his grin into a discreet smile and bowed. "Sorry for my manners, Milady. But taking it won't affect us, so that won't be a problem."

Raising a critical red-brown eyebrow, Jenna looked the threesome over. The blond boy and the girl didn't seem to have anything strange about them, but the older boy – _Felix, was it?_ – seemed familiar. _It's the same feeling I had when I first came in,_ Jenna realised. She dropped the eyebrow like a millstone and addressed the three Adepts. "I don't suppose any of you would know about a letter?"

Sheba frowned, clearly bemused. "Letter? As in A, B, C?" She shook her head. "I don't even know my alphabet. I get stuck after G."

Felix and Isaac exchanged glances. Isaac twitched his scarf nervously. "Um…I know the alphabet, but if you mean a written letter then I'm stuck. None of us can read or write."

Jenna sighed, pulling a small piece of official parchment from her breastplate and extracting a well-chewed pencil from the depths of a pocket. She wrote something down carefully, put away the pencil, and entered the room to place the parchment on the table. Turning to Garet, she nodded. "We're finished here, Garet. Let's go."

* * *

Felix waited until the two Mars Adepts were completely out of earshot before grabbing the piece of parchment from the table and scanning it quickly. "Thanks, you two. The alphabet stuff probably put her off."

Isaac grinned, rubbing his head again. "Hey, no problem. Trying to protect literate Venus Adepts is fun."

"What does it say?" Sheba asked, standing on tiptoe to see the pencilled squiggles that covered the parchment square. "Is it about us?"

"It's bad," Felix replied. "'Take these three in for questioning by Third Lady's squad. Seem cunning. Possibly in league with Seekers.' That's about the worst news we've had since the execution announcements."

Swallowing, Isaac started toying with his scarf nervously. "But…it's just questioning." He screwed his face up in annoyance. "Oh, damn, why are pessimists always right that something bad's gonna happen?"

Sheba was biting her lip and looking up at the two boys. "Interrogation," she murmured. "And torture often goes hand in hand with interrogation. And then…" She shuddered at the thought. "Another execution."

"That's not going to happen," Felix said decisively, placing the parchment on the table in exactly the place it had been left. "I won't let anyone hurt you, Sheba. I promise." He met her eyes with his own, serious ones. "I won't let anyone hurt my little sister."

"Hey, don't leave me out! I want to look after Sheba, too!" Isaac protested. "And we can start looking after you by making sure we all get the hell out of here right now."

As the sun finally began to climb into the sky, nobody noticed the three members of the Venus Clan who slipped out of an old cottage and soon disappeared into the verdant greenery of the forest that surrounded the Venus sector. Nobody realised they had vanished until they saw, in the distance, the figure of Lord Saturos and the incineration squad, and tried to tell the three who were long gone.


	3. Run, Hide

Ack. Lots of short paragraphs at the end of last chapter. Must try to avoid that.

Now for chapter 3 – and what's with the letter everyone's been going on about…

* * *

Run, Hide

Mariner stood in the crow's nest, drumming his fingers on the metal-trimmed wood. _It's well past dawn now. Surely they should be in sight._ He snapped open the telescope and put it up to his eye, turning to the direction his two squad members should be returning from. He chewed the inside of his lip and exhaled through his nose, unnerved by the lack of movement in the thick forest foliage. Taking the telescope down and closing it up slowly and deliberately, Mariner frowned and tried to relax. _Knowing Seer, he probably held them up because of the weather. Yes, that's probably the case._

He worried for the two of them; they were the closest thing to a family he had, and apart from that they were good at their jobs. The three of them had worked together for several years on the mystery of the Elemental Acolytes, in conjunction with the three Venus Adepts who had been their inside source of information. If anything, their small squad had been one of the best the Seekers had, and the closest to working out the Acolyte problem.

_I shouldn't have sent them out alone,_ Mariner thought. Sighing at his own idiocy, he clambered down the metal rungs set into the mast and pushed open the ornate door that led to the other decks. _They work well, but sometimes…_ He pushed the door to his cabin open, glancing at the almost bare room before reaching for the sheathed long blade propped up against the wall. These days, with Wings and Seer increasing their abilities rapidly, it was rare for him to use the sword instead of letting the junior Seekers get on with the fighting. His abilities were already considerably…different from theirs, both in terms of power and style, honed over however many years of life he'd survived.

The blade shimmered in the light, the tempered steel glinting blue in places – a sign of the expert craftsmanship. There was a strange delicacy to the hint of decoration on the hilt, picked out in minute aquamarines that were slightly tarnished by the many years of the sword's use in all weathers. It was one of the few things Mariner had left as a reminder of his long-gone home. To wield it was in his blood. Innumerable members of his family had possessed the sword before him.

There was one thing Mariner regretted about staying single: the blade would never be passed on to another. He would remain the last…

He slung the now-sheathed sword onto his back, tugging on the straps of his swordbelt to adjust its positioning slightly. "I'd better go and look for them," he said to the picture frame that was turned to face the wall. His yellow feline eyes narrowed. "I'll find a way to deal with you later," he said coldly, striding out of the room and back onto the deck. The memory pain became more concentrated every time he thought of the picture, and always managed to jab him with acute accuracy where his mind wasn't as strong as the rest of him. He had to put his mind to something else before the pain became too intense to think through.

The forest floor, speckled with small beams of gradually strengthening sunlight, was still damp after the previous night's rainstorm. Mariner didn't like the noise his footsteps made; the squelching sound could easily attract attention he didn't want. He kept running, making his path as winding as possible to put off anyone who found his tracks later, hoping he wouldn't be spotted as an alien patch of blue amongst the native green and brown hues of the forest, and keeping his senses alert in case he found Seer and Wings.

"Mariner?"

The voice was familiar, but Mariner latched one hand around the handle of his sword anyway while he turned to face the direction the voice came from. When he was rewarded with the sight of Wings and Seer tumbling out of the undergrowth, he let go of the handle and went to help them back up to their feet. Both of them were panting, exhausted by what must have been a long run through the rough, sodden terrain. There were rips in Wings' sleeves and a faint, thin line of blood welling up on her cheek where something sharp and whippy had hit her; Seer was red-faced and coated liberally with mud.

"What happened?"

"We couldn't get the letter…" Wings said in-between breaths. "The three must have known we were coming, because they ambushed me while I was searching and Seer got caught from behind. We only just got away…"

Seer tried and failed to brush some of the mud off his tunic. "I had my sword taken away. I'm sorry, but I'd have lost my neck otherwise…" He ran a hand through his blond mop of hair, still trying to calm down. "And then two Mars showed up, so we couldn't finish the search."

"Two Mars means inspection," Mariner said thoughtfully. He shook his head in disappointment, clucking his tongue. "Damn. If the letter's still in the house, and the Mars find it, then those three kids are in trouble."

Wings tightened her ponytail, straightening up and letting concern dance across her face. Her skin paled considerably; the aqua-coloured eyes shuddered. "If they're found with the letter and that sword, they're really in trouble. They'll be linked to us immediately, and then hauled up in front of the Lords and Ladies for questioning." She shook her head. "Those poor children…"

"Wings, two of them were older than me," Seer pointed out.

"It's enough to disgust anyone," Wings murmured, still lost in a spinning world of complete regret and worry. "We should have tried to explain…about what we are…"

Mariner put a hand on her shoulder and made her look at him. His face was unreadable as she made herself listen to his words. "Wings. What good would it have done them or you if you told them? And what is done is done. You're one of the Angelical Healers – you should know you can't change the past. All you can do is –"

"Try to make it better…" Wings finished, staring down at her white, earth-covered boots. "But how can we do that? We've gone, and the Mars have probably found the letter already. It's too late to help them…"

Rolling his eyes at the worrying Wings, Seer shrugged. "Mia, you should be used to people dying by now. You've been with the Seekers for six years."

"But I don't like seeing people I know get hurt!" Wings wailed. "You like it even less than I do, Ivan! I heard you calling for me, all that worry in your voice! So stop – just stop criticising me! It's horrible!" The Mercury Adept glared at her companion defiantly, watching with apprehensive satisfaction as his jaw quivered and he started staring at his feet.

Mariner shook his head. "Keep your voices down before we're heard, Mia, Ivan. And try not to use your real names when we don't know who's nearby. Arguments won't help anyone here." Flicking his gaze from Mercury to Jupiter before closing his eyes to think, the man ran through his hazy, annoyingly vague memories of the three Adepts the deceased members of his squad had described occasionally. _I don't know enough about them to work out how they'll move._ He flinched as the pain of memory slid through the fused bones of his skull and stabbed at whatever was behind his eyes.

Fists clenched and teeth clamped together to prevent his emotions from spiralling out of control, Seer suddenly looked up from the sodden ground, focusing on what had just leaped at his acute senses from out of the dense forestry. He whirled round as a cornered cat might, flinging out an arm to focus his psynergy. "Reveal!" he commanded, the flush of psynergy bringing the sparkles back into his purple irises. There was nothing hidden in the area. "But…" he said, trying to understand it as he faced Mariner and Wings. "I heard something…voices…"

"I can't hear anything," Wings replied.

"We should leave before we're found," Mariner said, starting to head off in the direction Seer had faced. "What? Come on, you two."

* * *

Steely blue armour gleaming perfectly in the sunlight of the early morning, the First Lord shoved the door open unceremoniously and cast an uninterested glance at the state of the small room. Noticing the square of parchment left on the already-singed table, Saturos snatched it up and raised a single severe eyebrow as he let his eyes shift across the few short lines. His second eyebrow joined the first in genuine surprise when he recognised the signature that followed the neat pencilled lines. "An unusual choice of inspector to send into the Venus sector," he contemplated.

There was nobody in the cottage, despite an incredibly thorough search that could have found a dead gnat within a locust horde. Saturos was quiet at the result, wondering if it was possible for the three who should have been there to have known the squad was coming for them. He didn't want to believe the possibility that they could _read_. Since the Venus Uprising of a hundred years ago, it had been declared illegal for anyone of the Venus Clan to be educated; it was the safest method to avoid any further organisation amongst the masses of the serfs and villeins. Five generations of the lowest Clan had been uneducated. It was impossible for any of them to know how to read…

He signalled to the incineration squad to commence the destruction of the already-dilapidated house. Five Mars Adepts were already in position to start the fire, with two Jupiter Adepts to hurry the resulting blaze's activities along. A trio of blue-haired Mercury Adepts stood nearby, heads dutifully bowed, prepared to put the fire out when its duty was done. From nearby, several horrified members of the Venus Clan stared at the swiftly crumbling building that collapsed under the pressure of the fire's overwhelming heat and grasp.

When the squad had completed their work, they watched, emotionless, as the First Lord surveyed the cremated cottage and the remaining wisps of acrid smoke coiled upwards into the otherwise clean air of the morning. The smirk that twitched Saturos' face into appearing even more dangerous and malevolent did not go unnoticed.

* * *

Sheba ran. Mud splashed up her legs, bare beneath her skirt, as she cast frightened glances over her shoulder in the direction she'd come from. The scar on her left wrist disappeared under the browny-green sludge that coated both her hands and lower arms when she tripped over a hidden tree root and fell onto all fours; pulling herself up and rapidly turning her head in all directions, fear still clutching at her, she kept moving. Felix and Isaac were somewhere behind her, she knew, but so were the people she had somehow sensed following them.

For a moment, the girl paused by a stream and splashed frigid water onto her face. She scooped a little of it into her shaking hands and slurped it into her dry mouth, gasping with relief as it trickled down her throat and began to cool her insides. Another mouthful, and she began to struggle back onto her feet. The hand that touched her shoulder made her turn round too quickly and fall over.

"It's only me!" Isaac said, helping her up. There was a livid bruise on his cheek. "You okay?"

Sheba nodded dumbly in reply, licking her parched lips in the hope of moistening them with the little saliva she had left. Her voice was wobbly when it decided to slide back down her gullet with another cold mouthful of stream water. "Wh-where's Felix?"

"Here," the eighteen-year-old replied, stumbling into the tiny clearing with a series of scrapes on his hands. He dipped them in the stream, flinching when the water started to make the grazes sting. "Sheba, are they still following us?" he asked, glancing up at her through his long bangs.

For a moment, the girl concentrated, frowning as she strained to find their pursuers. "I…think so. I can't quite tell, but I think they're far away right now." She looked up at Isaac. "How did you two end up injured?"

He flushed slightly, almost as if he was trying to hide the darkening bruise. "Um, a, um, series of falls. The ground hit me, not the other way round!" he protested, the round blueness of his eyes pleading with Sheba to believe him. A few moments of silence passed, and he risked glancing at Felix, who had stood up and come up behind his little adopted sister. "It's kinda painful, being hit by the ground," he added, false cheer resounding in his voice.

"Not as painful as being hit by me if you carry on like that." Felix was still out of breath. "Damn it, we're not used to running like this. We won't be able to keep going for much longer, and we're not even half and hour away from the cottage." Bending over slightly, he rubbed his side. "And I've got a stitch. At this rate we'll get caught."

Isaac tugged a bit of his scarf into his mouth and nibbled it. "Pessimist is right, again."

"I…I'm fairly certain the ones following us have stopped," Sheba said carefully. Still shaking slightly, she reached into her shirt and withdrew the slightly soggy oblong of wax-sealed paper. Holding it out to her brother nervously, she watched a brightly-feathered bird shriek through the forest at high speed, closely followed by a larger, sleeker, better-camouflaged predatory avian. It was slowly closing in on the little bird, its sharp talons extended and ready to snatch the defenceless little bird from out of the humid air. Sheba forced herself into looking at Felix as the high-pitched noise of the bird was silenced with a doomed squeak.

Felix took it from her fingers silently, frowning at the blue wax seal and tracing the circular design stamped firmly into it. "This is…Sheba, this is what the inspector was looking for, isn't it? What…why did you have it?"

"I found it." She shuffled her feet in the wet forest floor. "Can you read it?"

Isaac nodded, still chewing on the edge of his scarf. "Yeah…I want to know why Mom and Dad died, and why people keep trying to break into the house to get their hands on this letter." His words were slightly muffled and sounded uncomfortable because of the amount of scarf in his mouth. When he pulled it out, it looked mustard-coloured instead of bright yellow where he'd 'eaten' it.

"Keep eating that scarf and it'll make you ill," Felix muttered. He turned the letter over and peered at the scribbled letters on it. "It's addressed to someone called 'Revealer', whoever that is."

"I can't say I've heard of anyone called that," Sheba said, combing a hand through the knots of mud and twigs in her hair. "It's a strange-sounding name."

Both eyebrows shooting upwards into his gold-blond hair, Isaac gasped with realisation. "Those two who came first – the blue girl and the little Jupiter – they had weird names too, didn't they? The girl was…Wings, I think, and the little boy was called Seer! Maybe they're related to this Revealer person!" Nodding a couple of times to agree with himself, he pointed at the letter. "So, they must have been sent to get the letter, and the two Mars people really were just doing a regular inspection!"

"But Isaac," Sheba pointed out with a shake of her head, "Didn't the inspector ask if we knew anything about a letter? This Revealer person might be wanted by the law. So – if we're found with it, then…"

"Be quiet a minute! You still want me to read this, don't you?" Felix snapped, the brambles in his personality poking up through his skin. They both fell silent under his gaze. Carefully sliding a thumb under the wax seal, Felix opened the sheet of paper and followed the lines of familiar handwriting. He glanced up at the other two, his eyes softening from stone to mud. "This is in Dad's handwriting," he said, swallowing to keep calm.

Sheba's jade eyes widened in further terror. "That means that…what the Third Lady person said at the execution about them being involved with the Seekers…it might be true! This Revealer might be involved with the Seekers!" She heard an anxious sucking noise from behind her, and turned round to sigh at Isaac. "Will you quit eating that scarf?"

"I'm just nervous…"

"You'll seriously make yourself ill. Who knows what that scarf's been in besides your mouth?" Felix shook his head and looked back down at the letter. "Okay…it's quite long, and I don't know some of the words, but I can try." He cleared his throat and began to read the rushed writing. "'Revealer, we found a new information source concerning the'…I think that's 'Elemental Acolytes'… 'but the Mars have found us out, and this might be our final'…that looks like 'correspondence'… 'to you. Some runes at the bottom of a mine talk about the Acolytes and how their work was able to bring about Weyard's balance of power. But more of the runes are hidden by the rocks and we were unable to read them.'" Felix paused, working his tongue around the next line. "'There was a mention of the Mariner, as well as something about a blood'… 'feud. Dora has confirmed the Archives contain'…okay, I can't read that word… 'work on the Mars Acolyte, but nothing on the other three. Sending squads to the other'…ugh, another word I don't know, but I think it's 'continents'… 'might get us more information. Looking at the runes carefully might make what the Seekers know of the Acolytes greater.'"

"There! The Seekers!" Sheba exclaimed. "Isaac, stop eating your scarf! This is important!"

"I'm tired, I'm hungry, and you're making me listen to stuff that's too weird to get into my head. Can't we just take a break for a couple of minutes to try to work it all out?" Isaac said, yanking the scarf from his mouth. He slumped against a tree, lips moving quickly as he ran through the letter again in his head. "Okay…so Mom and Dad were involved with this Revealer, and the Seekers. And the Seekers are looking for stuff about Acolytes. Right. Keep going, Felix."

The older boy lifted an eyebrow. "So you're going to use that mind of yours at last. We might get somewhere now. 'Also, I've overheard from some of the guards that soon there's going to be a'… 'celebration', I think… 'throughout the Mars, Mercury and Jupiter sectors to celebrate the day the Venus Uprising was stopped. This would be the perfect'…looks like it's 'opportunity'… 'to' what the hell's that meant to be? Okay, 'to something the Mars sector and take the books from the Archives. Yours, probably for the last time, Jasper.'"

"They're gonna plan some sort of attack on the Mars sector?" Isaac said. "Yowch. They're either really, really tough, or really, really stupid. The Seekers must be desperate to get their hands on that information, so they can do something with the Acolytes."

Sheba started, looking up abruptly. "Uh oh. We can't tell anyone about this. They'll know one of us can read, and then we'll get hauled up for questioning. They might think we're Seekers as well." She frowned, sniffing, and looked up through the jagged rip in the canopy at the sky that was as spattered with clouds as the three of them were with mud. "Can you smell smoke?"

"Hey, I don't know about smoke, but I can certainly see trouble," Isaac replied, staring into the labyrinth of trees. "I thought you said they'd stopped coming, Sheba!"

_Oh damn. That Wings girl was able to make herself vanish into thin air using psynergy. They must've used that to reach us without Sheba noticing!_ Felix thought, quickly folding up the letter and taking a few steps towards his friends.

The man in blue with yellow eyes and folded arms regarded them. "How about you hand over that letter before anything else happens to you?"

* * *

Her personal forest of plants drank the pure sunlight of midday in greedily. The heady scent of the pollen the beautiful blooms released swam like a lazy rainbow trout through the almost perfectly still air of the room. It lay on Kay's body like a second gossamer-thin blanket; smoother than silk, lighter than soft bird down, the perfume filled her faultless skin as she slept on, oblivious to the gentle love the plants gave her.

"My Lady? My Lady, I hope you will forgive me, but there are many people here to see you."

Kay's sleepy green eyes focussed on the girl who was shaking her from the slumber she still wanted. The polite tone could only belong to one person. "Okay…Feizhi, who are these visitors? Will I need my robes or can I wear normal clothes?"

Feizhi bobbed a polite curtsey as her mistress sat up. "My Lady, it is the Lord Saturos who wishes most to see you. I do not think he is best pleased. Ah, also there is your brother and his lady friend who would beg to see you." The girl smiled at Kay's reaction of disgust. "I also find him to be annoying. Already, I have prepared my Lady's official robes."

"Great. Great. Look, Feizhi, you go and offer the visitors a drink or something, and I'll dress myself." With relief, Kay watched the maid bustle off into the next room and question the visitors, in her Xian accent, whether they wished for a drink. Still listening to the chiming of crystal glass against porcelain jug, the Third Lady dragged on her heavy orange silk dress and green-flecked yellow over-robe, slid her tired feet into her tooled leather boots, and set the gold circlet of the Third Lady precisely onto her shocking waterfall of ginger hair. _I'm too tired to tie it up._

When Kay entered the main room, the floral smell came with her. On the polished table sat a willow-pattern Xian jug and a final tall glass. If it wasn't for her visitors, she would have pounced on the drink herself. Setting her face to its most polite and ladylike, she smiled cordially at Saturos. "Milord. To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

"They weren't there," he replied flatly, sipping the red drink from his glass. "There was a note saying to bring the three brats in for interrogation. I didn't find any kids, anywhere. Just thought I'd let you know why you won't get anything useful from the inspector's visit." He tipped the remainder of his drink into his mouth and swallowed it. "I won't take up any more of your or my time. All of us have pressing work to finish."

Feizhi opened the door for the First Lord. "Always, always he is in a great hurry. He must take more time to learn much," she murmured when he was gone, before remembering there were others in the room and scurrying away into Kay's bedroom. "Forgive me, my Lady, but I must complete my chores."

"That maid still speaks weirdly," Garet commented. "But, y'know, I don't think those three would've brought you any new information. One of them must've been off his head. He said he'd been hit by a blue chicken." He swilled the bright red liquid in his glass, watching the little bubbles that gleamed on the surface. "You've gotta admit, that's weird."

Jenna was frowning, making her features appear more dangerous. "They were all there when Garet and I left, and Lord Saturos arrived only a few minutes after us. We passed him on the way back here." Setting her glass down onto the table with a _chink_, she stood up and paced for a few moments. "Unless one of them could read, there's no way they could have known the squad was coming. Which means that someone's been betraying the other Clans in teaching a Venus Adept to read."

"This is getting too complicated. My head's hurting," Garet complained.

"Either that, or some of the Venus Clan are literate…and taught them…" Kay added, ignoring her brother. She shook her head. "We'll deal with that later. What's with the sword, Jenna?"

Jenna laid the rapier on the table, leaving her fingers on the handle. "It's too well-made to have come out of the Venus sector, and the metal isn't the sort of alloy made in Angara. The steel is incredibly strong and supple; it looks like it's from Gondowan or Indra." She met Kay's eyes and hoped her presumptions were correct. "I can't think of how three Venus Clan adolescents managed to get their hands on this unless they stole it or got it from someone."

"Are you two listening? I'm in pain here, from the migraine you're causing!"

"Jenna, I suggest checking this with Karst, not me. But thanks anyway." Kay noticed how perilously close one of her potted plants was to her brother's clumsy feet. "Garet! Don't move, or I'll have to punish you for smashing up another of my plants!"

After the two of them had left, arguing, and headed back to their respective normal jobs, Kay sat back in her chair with her head embedded in her hands. All of the plans she'd made apparently had developed crumbling foundations, and if she wasn't careful they would all fall down around her. Reaching shakily for the almost-empty jug of pomegranate and cherry juice, she poured the remainder of it into the final glass and hurled the jug at the door with an angry shriek of failure.

The porcelain smashed into innumerable blue and white shards.

* * *

It didn't take a genius to work out that they were in trouble. Behind the blue man stood the Mercury girl from earlier, her hands clasped together and her eyes closed as if in prayer. Although they couldn't see him, the cornered three knew that the blond Jupiter boy who looked so frighteningly like Sheba was probably nearby. If there was anything they knew, it was to avoid such bad situations; two mediocre Venus Adepts and a Clanless girl could easily fall victim to the power of just the man alone.

"How about 'no'?" Felix replied, handing Sheba the letter.

Isaac recognised the stubborn tone and reached into his tattered shirt for the almost blunt knife he'd taken with him. Moving closer to Sheba, he slid his mentality into one he rarely used and disliked having to use. It was one that had brought pain to many people. But it was one that had also brought him the respect in the Venus community that had kept the Clanless girl he lived with safe for long enough. _I can use this knife. It's not the best weapon I could have, but I know I can definitely use it._

"That's not really the answer I was looking for."

…_okay, but maybe not against that kind of weaponry…_ Isaac gulped, keeping his eyes fixed on the girl with pale blue hair. She'd opened her eyes, and they were watching him with what seemed to be amusement. _Whatever she was doing can't have been good. I can sense the amount of power that's been put into the atmosphere. And where's the little boy?_

For a moment there was complete stillness while the man eyed Felix impassively. Eventually he sheathed the sword and held out a hand instead. "I'd prefer to avoid any ugliness. Just hand over the letter and go home."

"No."

"Believe me, this is the safer option for all of us," was the eerily calm reply. "I promise you, Felix, you don't want to anger me. I have a tendency to overreact a little."

Sheba hurriedly shoved the letter back down the front of her shirt and rubbed the patch of half-dried mud off her forearm. The pale scar – a ring with two horizontal lines, one above and the other below it – showed clearly against the rest of her nearly completely muddy skin. She bit down on her bottom lip when the two Adepts showed no reaction. _They don't follow the laws about protecting the Clanless. That's normally our last card if we want to avoid a fight. We're dead._

"How come _you're_ throwing the Clanless mark around?" someone demanded, grabbing onto her wrist and yanking her arm up to inspect the scar. "Are you guys all mad? She can't be Clanless! I can sense her power!"

Both the Venus Adepts wheeled round and lunged at Seer. "Don't touch her!" Felix growled, pushing the boy out of the way and far from the girl he'd promised to protect. He didn't notice the slight smile on Seer's face until something cold and heavy smashed into the back of his unprotected head, knocking him forwards into the mud, unconscious and unmoving.

Seer knelt down to check Felix's pulse before looking up at Mariner. "That's more than an overreaction, Mariner. Reckon he'll be out cold for a day at least."

"What else exactly could we do in the situation?" Wings reminded him, stepping out of the forest. She smiled at Isaac apologetically. "Sorry about whacking you."

"It looks like I got off lightly," Isaac replied, staring in shock at the ice that was melting in the day's heat and trickling down Felix's neck and under his clothes. He gulped as Mariner turned his attention to him, pulling Sheba closer to him. "Look…I'm sorry, but he always reacts like that. And you did kinda just demand the letter. And those two did sort of break into our house earlier and tried to ransack it."

Sheba licked her dry lips, watching the limp form of her adoptive brother and thinking of something to say. Nothing came to her, until she looked at Seer and remembered something. "What you said about me having power…was a lie, right?"

"Well…not really. Look, we should finish this up somewhere else. We're still at the risk of being followed by Mars soldiers, and it won't exactly look good if you're found here with us." Seer stood up, smiling at Sheba with what seemed to be genuine concern. "We should all go back to the ship."

Isaac and Sheba had no time to react to the speed with which Mariner effortlessly picked Felix up and disappeared into the forest's heavy depths. Wings shrugged, beckoned to the two confused Adepts, and followed wordlessly. Eventually giving in to their general predicament and worry for the fallen Venus boy, Sheba and Isaac trailed after Seer through the maze of trees that led towards another of the peculiarities of the last couple of days.

* * *

Oh, damn. Still too many little paragraphs! Better luck next time, Rialys…


	4. Flight

Wah…learning French is so…tiring…

…and, um, not meaning to sound horrid or anything, but it would be nice to have some feedback (via the nice purple review button…). Thanks to those who're still following the weird story! Oh, and the first bit of shipping shows up this chapter! Admittedly, it might not be obvious, but you can try guessing what it is if you feel like it…

Last note: 'marchpane' is an old way of saying marzipan, and trepanning is a prehistoric method of curing headaches by taking a bit of bone out of the skull.

* * *

Flight

A couple of days had passed since the three Venus Clan members had disappeared into the forest, and the Lords and Ladies of Mars in Angara had called a meeting to discuss the Seekers.

Garet was a guard, and he was good at his job. There were perks that came with it, especially for those who looked too dumb to understand anything. His skills at eavesdropping on important, supposedly private meetings were highly developed. Of course, his skills at passing on the information for the right price were even better. If the information let him spend more time around Jenna, the relatively elusive inspector who was also his best friend, all so much the better for him.

But this meeting was only spouting about things every self-respecting Mars Adepts in Angara knew. _I've been here for a whole hour and all they've done is wait for my flower-obsessed sister to show up and start yakking about the Empire. I could be collecting the betting money…_

The Empire: a supreme nation spread over most of Weyard's surface, headed by the Mars Clan. It was old, bloated on power, but it worked. The other Clans were collectively beneath the Mars Clan, differing in importance from continent to continent. While the dangerous if reckless Venus Clan was at the bottom of the pyramid in Angara and Gondowan, the Mercury Clan took its place in Hesperia and Indra; the Jupiter Clan was most disliked in Osenia and numerous island communities scattered like leaves on an autumn day across the Great Western and Eastern Seas.

"The Seekers are the most dangerous threat to the Empire since the Venus Uprising here in Angara and Gondowan a hundred years ago. All we have to do is call 'em out and crush 'em, like we did with the Venus Clan!" Garet heard the Second Lord say. There was obvious frustration in his voice, and the resounding thump of his fist hitting the table accentuated it.

"Agatio, sit down." _Menardi's annoyed,_ Garet thought. "We have next to no information on the Seekers, even after the capture of an entire squad of them in Hesperia. There are at least three squads similar in size in Angara and Gondowan. Finding them would be difficult." There was a sound of paper or parchment being shuffled. "There is one thing we know for certain though. The Hesperian squad mentioned someone called 'Mariner'."

Garet concentrated on listening when the Second Lady gasped. "You can't mean –"

"All the evidence points towards it, Karst."

"But Saturos, that would mean he's…dear gods, he must be at least…"

Concentration was all very well, but what Karst was saying was drowned out by Kay talking over the Second Lady. Garet wanted to swear – _so close to something good!_ – and stuffed a fist into his mouth to silence himself. Kay was saying something that sounded…new. Interesting. "The Hesperian squad captured must have had loose tongues. I only got a snippet of information out of the three from an Angaran squad – and even then I wasn't able to follow up on any of it. Jenna found no letter, and the three children disappeared in the ten minutes it was between the inspector leaving and Lord Saturos arriving."

Menardi's lips were probably pursed, her expression sourer than a lemon. "Ah. Meaning that at least one of them could read. Karst, sister, what of the other inspections your group made? Did they find anything similar?"

"If you're referring to the first inspection, when I took those three Venus, then no. And the recent inspections within the Venus sector came up with no literate children." Karst paused. "Although there was a girl with the Clanless mark who clearly isn't. If you two were there, you'd have been able to check for me, but I'm fairly certain she was Jupiter." Another pause, long and scarily polite, filtered into the air. "Why wasn't she discovered earlier, though? Nobody can become an Adept if they're born Clanless."

"Because they suck. Right, Garet?"

The unexpected voice that had whispered in his ear made the guard jump round, frightened. He scowled at the giggling Jenna. "Not funny. I'm trying to find stuff out, and you're making fun of me."

Jenna smiled and punched his arm amiably. "C'mon, let's get out of this stuffy palace. Sheesh, Garet, you spend any more time snooping around and you'll end up with some dumb title like 'lord eavesdropper'. That, or Kay'll chuck another plant pot at your head for being an idiot." She set off up the mirror-coated corridor, ignoring the multiple reflections of her that trailed behind slightly. Pausing at the small door within the massive official one, ornately carved until there was no blank wood left, Jenna looked back down the corridor at her friend. "You coming? We don't have all day. I've got to get back to work at three."

"So that's why you're not in your armour," Garet replied with a grin, catching up with her. "You look better without it." As they wandered through the spacious courtyard, he frowned. "Uh, where are we going?"

"I thought Mercury sector would be nice. They say a couple of Angelical Healers from Imil showed up recently in Vault, so we might get some news of them from the traders. Oh, and plus, you can only get those chocolate pastries from Mercury sector. And it's too hot to risk Jupiter sector – it'll be storms everywhere." Jenna kicked a pebble across the ground, grinning when it collided with one of the terracotta pots. "Heh. That'll teach Kay to blab about me messing up on that letter to Karst."

Garet watched the hairline crack spread up the pot. "You're a lot stronger than you look." Turning his gaze back to Jenna, he swallowed. She was glaring at him. "H-hey…that wasn't meant to be an insult…it's just that you don't look all that tough when you're not in armour…"

"Are you saying I look feeble? Because if you are, I'll slap you."

As they walked through the city towards the elegant Mercury sector, Garet caught his mind running through what was know about Jenna. She was popular in the three main sectors, able to socialise with nearly everyone who called out to her, but that was only because her origins were kept strictly secret. _Hell, I only know because she wanted to tell me. There's only a handful of us that know. It'd be the end for her if anyone else did._

Jenna, with her unique hair and eye colour, had been discovered in the Venus sector as a baby, seventeen years ago. Up until the day of the inspection, her Clan alignment had been suppressed by an unknown psynergetic source. By mere chance, the suppression had failed to cover up her psynergy that day – and had revealed to the Second Lady of the time that the baby's mother was also faking being Clanless, hoping to stay with her Venus husband and son. The Empire's laws wouldn't allow for such a thing to happen, especially after the Venus Uprising in Angara and Gondowan; both mother and baby had been taken to their correct place in the Mars sector.

It had been a scandal at the time, but gradually over time it had been forgotten. Since the death of Jenna's mother, when Jenna was six, Menardi and Karst had taken the girl under their dark red wings and gave her the _proper_ sort of life for a Mars Adept…

_It's a miracle she didn't end up with a heart made of frost like those two harpies,_ Garet contemplated as he watched Jenna come running back up the street with a brightly-wrapped parcel under one arm. _I wonder how it happened…that she stayed human instead of going lizardy and horrid…_

"Hey, Garet! I never told you about it, did I?"

"Eh?" He frowned at her. "About what? And if that's the chocolate, can I have one?"

Jenna sighed at the typicality of his response, pulling one of the warm pastries out of the paper bag and handing it to him. "Still thinking with your stomach, huh?" She shook her head, watching him bite into the pale gold pastry and start chewing. "Ugh, never mind. I meant about the rapier we found in that Venus cottage."

"Nope," Garet replied through a second mouthful of pastry and chocolate. He swallowed the mouthful and brushed crumbs off his mouth. "Did somethin' come up about it?"

Tugging a second pastry out of the bag and biting into it, not bothered by her manners, Jenna nodded. "Sure did. I handed it over to Karst, and she got the smiths to check it out. Apparently, it's actually Attekan steel, which is some of the best around, and there's a spell on it. It's got some weird name I can't pronounce. But it's definitely one hell of a good weapon."

Finishing the pastry and brushing golden flakes off his gloves, Garet lifted his eyebrows. "Those Venus kids are gonna be dead when the Lords and Ladies get their hands on 'em. Kay'll have a field day, interrogating them. Can I have another pastry?"

"You've still got chocolate on your face from your first one," Jenna replied. She laughed as he swiped at his face wildly, his warm eyes confused and worried. "Come here, you idiot. Seriously, you look terrible with a moustache." _Quite how he didn't notice I'll never know._ Reaching out with one finger, she swiped the brown smudge off his top lip and licked it off her long digit, eyeing his expression of first fear and then anger. A smile spread over her face. "Mm. Tastes better for being in the air."

The anger vanished to be replaced by a blush. "Jenna! That was mine!"

"Yeah, and I'd like to see you try getting it back," she scoffed in reply, twirling on her heel and walking back through the streets towards the Mars sector. The soft _splish_ of water falling onto her head made Jenna look up at the sky. A minute ago it had been clear, with only the slightest hint of cloud; now the heavens were opening upon Angara, flinging down rain droplets at high speed. The air was heavy; her arms felt moist, and not just from the rain. But there was something else in the sky, something Jenna knew shouldn't be there.

"Jenna? We should be getting back before we're drenched," Garet pointed out. He felt her grab hold of his orange sleeve, and followed her gaze up into the sky. He squinted at the thing flying through it, passing over or under the clouds. "Isn't that a _ship_? What's it doing up there in the sky, of all places?"

"Flying…" Jenna replied. Despite the rain that was making her shiver, she licked her lips and turned back to her very wet friend. "We've got to get back to the palace. There's no such thing as a flying ship, and we can't be hallucinating." Water, cool and refreshing, slipped between her lips and down her unresisting throat. "C'mon, Garet. We really need to get back…to report this…" she said, setting off down the street again without another glance at the guard.

_Her mind's always on the job,_ Garet thought sadly. He looked up at the sky for a last glimpse of the ship before traipsing after the girl. _That's why I can't get through to her sometimes. Sure, she stayed human. But…I dunno…she also lost some emotions, I guess. Like noticing what others think of her._

* * *

"Please tell me this is all a very bad dream, Isaac."

"It's not."

"_Damn_."

For Wings and Seer, the pair of Venus Adepts had been acting weirdly. Maybe Isaac was gradually opening up to the two of them, but Felix was only drawing further into the protective shell created by his wariness and general dislike of others. In fact, it seemed like the two of them only properly relaxed when they were around Sheba, and then only when she was happy.

The first night they'd spent on the ship, Sheba and Isaac had both stayed in the cabin occupied by the unconscious Felix, not wanting to leave in case something happened to any of them and unused to the idea of having a room each. Oh, and after _that_, it had been practically impossible for the three of them to accept new clothes to replace their muddy-brown ragged ones. In the end, Wings had put her foot down so hard it nearly smashed through the deck; that had been enough for Isaac to change very quickly, and the other two weren't far behind him. Of course, separating Isaac from his scarf was a useless exercise, and he hung onto the yellow fabric with the grim determination of a tigress protecting her cubs. A warning from Sheba about how volatile Isaac's temper could be when in reference to the scarf had been enough for Wings to give up quickly on taking it away.

With a soft sigh, Wings left the two Venus Adepts and returned to her position next to the mast. _Drat it, Ivan! You can get Revealer to teach Sheba when we get to Contigo. You're just making the job of flying the ship even more difficult than normal,_ she grumbled mentally, clasping her hands together as if in prayer and concentrating on the flow of psynergy necessary for the ship to fly. _I'm going to be so tired later…Mariner can't hold this by himself till we reach the sea._ A strong breeze buffeted her, sending the long blue strands of her hair into imitation waves.

"It's beautiful," Sheba murmured. She and Seer were standing in the crow's nest, watching the ever-changing patterns in the clouds and letting the damp wind cool them down. "There are pictures in the air! And the wind's so strong up here!" Her smile showed off a set of strangely-perfect teeth. "Amazing…"

Seer smiled back at her, nervously. It was unusual for people to not be aware of their Clan until they were fourteen – he'd known of his since his fifth birthday. Not only that, but Sheba's presence was disturbing. The closest comparison Seer could think of was the feeling he got whenever he entered the strange sanctum close to his hometown: pure, holy, almost…angelic? _No, that's Mia – Wings! This is different._ Only the Imilian healing orders had that presence. Celestial was probably a better description. _This is too weird for words. She's just another human. Another Jupiter Adept, like me._

"I still don't understand how the ship's flying, though," Sheba said, snapping him from reverie.

He swallowed nervously and attempted to explain. "Well…this ship's special as it is. It can't be crewed by anyone except Adepts – so the Clanless humans wouldn't be able to move it at all." Her intelligent eyes seemed to understand, so he carried on. "It's already powered by psynergy. There's a special Jupiter psynergy that can prevent gravity from affecting you, and the wings attached to the ship work by concentrating psynergy on that power."

"Is that what Wings is doing?" Sheba asked, looking down over the barrier at the deck. Looking back at the sagely nodding Seer, she frowned. "Wings can't be a real name. Nor can Seer, or Mariner. So who are you really?"

"Well, collectively we're part of a group called the Seekers. But our names are revealed on a strictly need-to-know basis," Seer replied. He gulped, hoping Wings wouldn't hear. "I know Wings' real name, and mine, but nobody knows Mariner's real name except him. And I can't tell you the names I know."

"That's just mean," Sheba complained.

While the landscape (now a rough collage of green fabric, brown and yellow dust, and the occasional sapphire-blue satin ribbon) rolled on below the ship, seemingly endless, the clouds that flitted in the atmosphere gradually darkened to rich grey beasts that waited in the sky above the towns and tossed rain down, almost flippantly. Lightning flashed and forked downwards over the mountains to the north and south; thunder crashed at random, its loud chords deafening most of the ship's crew. The pair of Jupiter Adepts waited in the crow's nest, Sheba still pestering the unfortunate Seer for his name. He wasn't giving it.

Half-listening to the arguing duo, Isaac decided to leave Felix to his pessimistic musings of falling out of the ship or being swarmed with flying monsters and went to stand next to Wings. She must have been standing there for a couple of hours, and she looked wan and tired. Eventually, her eyes opened and she called out, somewhat blearily, "We'll have to land soon, Mariner. I can't give much more of my psynergy to the ship before I'm sapped completely dry." She yawned and looked up at Isaac. "Can I help you? Only I'm a bit woozy right now."

"It'd be nice to have a conversation with someone other than the pessimist," Isaac replied with a small smile, sounding jovial, jabbing a thumb in Felix's direction. "And, where are we going exactly? You three never said." He didn't fail to notice the almost undetectable glance Wings had cast in Mariner's direction.

In turn, she knew he'd noticed. "I…can't honestly say. Not to you, not yet." _Mariner would kill me. Ivan – Seer, I mean – would probably be angry, too._ Wings felt the boy's penetrating innocent blue gaze try to cut through her skull and into her thoughts, but he was no mind reader and his virtual trepanning skills weren't good either. Nonetheless, the clarity of the feeling was uncomfortable, as if she was being judged critically, and she glanced back up at him. "Look, you're not a Seeker yet. I can't tell you."

_Not yet, eh?_ "Aw, please?"

Wings laughed at Isaac's pleading expression. "Stop it. I'm patient, but I can't stay calm if you pull stupid faces." Rain splashed across her face and clothes. "Ah, we must have reached the Western Sea if we're going below the clouds. That's good." More water splattered down noisily onto them from above as the ship continued to descend, and the chords of thunder became more resonant. Wings gasped and tensed up, gripping her staff hard. "We're going too fast!" she said, terror in her voice. "We'll go under the waves if we land like this!"

"Can't I help?" Isaac asked, confused and worried by Wings' words. "I mean, it just needs psynergy, right? So can't I try –?"

Wings shook her head emphatically. "You don't know how to control it! Not with the wings!" Her head snapped round when Felix came out from behind the corner, looking concerned and yelling something about why ships shouldn't fly. "Don't try anything!" Wings shouted at him. "It'd be suicide!" _And we've already lost enough Venus Adepts recently, with Dora, Kyle and Jasper being found out!_

In the crow's nest, Seer was occupied with not panicking. He tried to tell Sheba to move, to get onto the deck so he wouldn't hit her with his psynergy, but the words stubbornly wouldn't come out of his mouth. In the middle of a storm, his psynergetic powers always went slightly out of control, and often people near him would get hurt by errant lightning bolts. He had to make her move, somehow, and help Mariner stop the ship from hitting the water too hard! But – _Oh, for the love of the gods, get out of the way!_ Seer yelled, hoping Sheba could lip-read. Frantic as the ship sped towards the ocean, he pointed repeatedly downwards, his body and clothes crackling with static lightning when he moved.

Sheba frowned at him, shook her head, and looked up. The unfriendly-looking purple waves resonating from the air were heading straight for Seer, and if she wasn't careful she'd be caught up in them. Finally getting the message, she dashed for the ladder and fumbled on the steps as she climbed down, slipping on the wet metal and almost falling off completely. She held onto the bars grimly.

Psynergy pulsed through the ship when Seer concentrated and tried to stay calm. The red and silver wings fixed to the ship reacted to the waves of psynergy, keeping the bulk of the ship hovering in the air for a little longer. The descent slowed slightly and after a minute the ship eased jerkily into the midday-coloured waters of the Great Western Sea, splashing cold waves up over the sides of the ship and drenching the Adepts on the deck. A few common, tacky pink jellyfish were stranded on the now-sodden deck.

Mariner looked up from the tiller, panting from the amount of psynergy he'd lost. He immediately reached for his sword. "Grab something you can use as a weapon!" he yelled over his shoulder at the pile of drenched Adepts as they picked themselves off the deck and each other, plucking multi-coloured seaweed and the occasional tiny fish from their saturated clothes and (in Wings' unfortunate case) hair.

The three-headed sea serpent roared, angry for the loud and unanticipated disturbance in its territory, and lunged with all three heads at the ship.

* * *

Kay slept, her body covered in sweat despite the thin silk sheets. It was only two in the afternoon, but the heat and humidity was too much for her to stand when wrapped in heavy, horrible, sweaty robes and artificial chain mail. She didn't have any jobs to do until the refreshing coolness of the evening, and until then she was going to sleep and tend to her thriving colony of flora. But her sleep proved to be fitful, and she tossed and turned while her mind forced her through a series of terrifyingly _real_ dreams that were more alike memories than true dreams…

_She was five, and sitting happily in front of the hearth playing with a doll. Flowers festooned her ginger hair – it was long even then – and she was talking to her disgruntled little brother. Passing him a bowl full of marchpane sweets, she watched him happily stuff a large handful into his mouth and try talking with his mouth full. While she was laughing at his foolishness, the door was thrown open to reveal the striking figures of Lady Menardi and Lady Karst; both of them were looking at her…_

_Seven years old and maturing fast, Kay was learning how to use a small sword. What was Garet doing there again? Probably acting like an idiot, smacking the wall as much as he did with his bare fists. Something clipped her head, and the stern face of her instructor became the immediate centre of her attention. She had always remembered the athletic lady's punishments for slacking off and neglecting to pay attention, and even in the dream the slap on her arm stung._

There would be a red mark there when she woke.

_Her eyes always viewed the world in two different lights when she was ten. One view was of how great the Empire became through the hard work of its subjects; the second was almost rebellious – why was this like this, and that like that? Did she have to do as she was told? Did all of these ragged creatures introduced to her as the Venus Clan have to know about her? They looked so disgusting and poor; she wanted nothing to do with them at all._

_She was left alone for a few moments by Menardi, so Kay sat on a dry tree stump and eyed the Venus Adepts as they went about their work, in her eyes peculiarly happy to be doing such difficult jobs. A handful of children, her age and younger, were helping the adults. But also, she could hear two voices, children's voices, calling a single name over and over. _Pointless,_ she thought. _Whoever it is won't respond. _For a few minutes she sat watching the workers with contempt, until someone caught her eye: a little blonde girl, maybe five or six, looking lost and frightened amongst all the other people. Privately intrigued, she watched the little girl stumble around and eventually fall into part of the forest that surrounded the Venus sector._

"_Milady? Excuse me, Milady, but have you seen a little girl?"_

_Kay regarded the person who spoke silently. He was maybe a month or so older than her, with dark brown eyes and hair, loose, down to his shoulders. She recognised panic and worry in his eyes. "Maybe," she replied. _Why am I even talking to this Venus? _"Why?"_

_He bowed, a little stiffly and unsurely. She noticed his trousers were too short. "My sister…she's my little sister, and I've been looking for her everywhere, Milady. She's only six, and she can't defend herself against monsters, so I've got to find her!"_

_The worry in his face was real enough. He was so worried he'd risked talking to a Mars Adept and a lashing. Kay had to admire the foolish bravery. _Very reckless_, she thought. _Maybe I'll help him_. "A little girl with blonde hair? About this high?"_

_He nodded silently, before remembering his manners. "Yes, Milady."_

"_She went that way," Kay said calmly, still observing the strange boy when she extended a hand in the direction the girl had vanished into. Within his eyes, a bright, fierce light had flared into life like a candle flame. In a way, it was a mysterious light, one she hadn't seen in a Venus Adept before. And yet, in another way, it was unnerving. Kay heard, but didn't listen to, what the boy said next, calling over his shoulder to a slightly younger boy with a stupidly long and incredibly yellow scarf. She was too busy trying to work out where she had seen that look in someone's eyes before._

_When he and the other boy headed off into the forest, Kay vaguely wondered if they would ever find the girl…_

Waking, Kay frowned and gathered one of the silk sheets around her body. All those things had really happened to her, during her childhood. Sitting up with a yawn, Kay slid out of bed and reached for her lightest robe. She drew it on slowly, and began to wander through her haven of plant life to calm down in the soothing greenery. Her hands were shaking when she tipped her small watering-can over the soil in the warm plant pots, and she wasn't certain as to why – certainly, the dream had felt real enough, but that shouldn't be allowed to shake her when she was perfectly in control of her life.

"My Lady, your brother has come to visit you. He is very much in a hurry."

Was it maybe those eyes?

"My Lady, he says it is most important he sees you!"

She hadn't mentioned to any other Mars Adepts that a Venus boy had spoken to her…it couldn't be guilt that made her tremble, because he couldn't have been punished. It was probably just the weather: the storm was getting worse even as she thought, with delicate patterned filigree sparks of lightning showing in the angry thistledown clouds. The temperature was fluctuating up and down sporadically. Kay always had been fairly jittery when a storm was thrown at the city; probably that was what troubled her.

"My Lady?"

"Kay, you stupid woman! There's a ship flying out there! What the hell are you doing, watering your dumb flowers when something so weird's happening? Kay!" She was half-aware of someone shaking her, knocking her off-balance and almost forcing her onto the floor. "Kay? Are you alright?"

No…no, it wasn't the weather. She'd seen those eyes somewhere very recently. Same colour, same sort of determined and fiery expression. The only question was where? And why was it making her so worried and shuddery?

"Kay? Sis?"

She frowned up at her brother's concerned, incredibly confused expression, and desperately wanted to stuff it full of marchpane again to make him not look quite as gormless. As it was, she recollected his comment on her flowers, screwed her face up with anger, and smashed him across the face with her watering-can. "Garet," she told him coolly, "You should know by now never to interrupt me. And if you go anywhere near my flowers again, I will hit you even harder. With my trowel."


	5. Recruits

(enables anonymous reviews for lazy people who aren't bothered enough to sign in)

Ugh, sorry there hasn't been an update for a while, but I've been suffering from death by holiday homework… But that's unrelated. Okay then, enter the leader of the Seekers – and no prizes for working out who she is in-game. Also, a more tactical battle than the typical GS ones (i.e. whack everything until it goes down). The fact you can't really have tactics against non-boss enemies I find annoying.

* * *

Recruits

Seer had already smashed into the deck, thrown there by a flick of the hydra's tail. Struggling to his feet, he tried to reach for any psynergy he had left and step out of the danger zone quickly. The lightning and whirlwinds he could call were slowly weakening in power as his mind began to lose its grip on the core of psynergy inside him; at this rate, with Wings already stripped of her psynergetic attacks and healing abilities, and Sheba struggling to stay out of the way due to her lack of fighting psynergy abilities, it wouldn't be very long before Mariner was left with the two Venus Adepts to finish off the sea serpent.

Not that they were useless, because they weren't. Although their psynergy was basic, almost too weak to inflict any damage to the hydra, they did know how to fight their way out of a corner and cooperate with each other. It looked like they'd been in plenty of fights before; few of the attacks they launched missed, and the ones that hit left the hydra bleeding its sticky gel-like blood over the ship.

There was a loud _flump_, and when Seer turned to look he could only hope that Wings would be alright. She was sprawled face-up on the deck, her face coated with layers of bruises and a few shallow cuts, her clothes ripped crudely in places. Seer gulped, fervently wishing that his presumption was incorrect: that Wings had been literally chewed up by the hydra and spat back out. The idea made him shiver.

Mariner yanked Isaac clear of the hydra's newest attack, stopping the boy from doing anything stupid by keeping a tight grip on his tunic and scarf. The scalding wave of water that would have directly crashed into the Venus Adept dispersed itself across the deck, just petering out at less than an inch from the unconscious Wings and hideously weakened Seer. Letting go of Isaac and sliding his sword out of the coating of hydra slime the deck had developed, Mariner addressed the two Venus boys. "Don't try to cut off the heads."

"But that's the only thing we _can_ try to do!" Isaac protested, trying not to fall over in the slime.

The Mercury Adept shook his head. "It's suicide with hydras. Cut off one head, and two or three grow back in its place. Don't risk it." He lashed out with his sword at one of the hydra's heavily barnacled faces. "Aim for the eyes!"

_Bit difficult at the moment,_ Felix thought as he tried to extricate himself from the tangle of the hydra's tail. He grunted with effort and pain as it was wrapped even tighter around his torso, trying to crush his ribs and lungs with the force from its too-developed muscles. In comparison with the sea beast, Felix was fragile and weak; he thought he could hear the cracking of his ribs above the roar of the sea and the hydra itself. _Shit…I won't last long like this…_

A tiny crackle of lightning ran through the hydra, making it loosen the grip it had on Felix besides confusing the serpent. It was being attacked from another angle, by a weak source of power, and it had been unexpected. Finally the hydra's six eyes focused on where the little shock had come from, letting the heads snarl and bare their foot-long poisonous fangs at the small, protective huddle of humans pressed up against the mast. But just before it could get close enough to attack, it suddenly could only see with two eyes…

Isaac yanked his friend from the hydra's strangling blue- and purple-scaled coils and whispered quickly into the older boy's ear. Springing out of the way and nearly slipping on the greasy yet glutinous slime again to avoid the hydra's madly thrashing tail, Isaac leapt at one of the hydra's heads and pushed his bare hands over its eyes. Glancing rapidly to his left, he caught sight of Felix hurriedly scaling another of the hydra's sinuous necks and forcing his hands over the second head's bright amber eyeballs.

The feverish, desperate concentration of a moment was all that was necessary for spires of stone to be sent point-first into four of the hydra's eyes. More of the gel-like blood spurted up around the stones, spattering the Venus Adepts' hands and sleeves with pale blue gunk. They were thrown back onto the deck by the hydra's renewed writhing and thrashing as it searched once again for the source of its attackers, the ones who had dared to almost blind it completely and leave it with only its acute sense of smell as a search tool.

"Ice…"

Its bestial scream slicing through the air like Mars Adepts through the ranks of the Venus Clan, the frantic hydra strained its nostrils to catch even the faintest scent of the prey that had fallen out of the sky and into its territory. Wings' attack, fuelled by psynergy shared with Mariner, had put out the last of the hydra's eyes and littered the deck with sharp spikes of solid cold. The spikes' sharpness was enough to find the weaker spots in the hydra's hide, and eventually the creature disappeared into the ocean.

Mariner cautiously pulled his hand away from Wings' shoulder. "It won't last long."

"The blood…" Seer murmured, pushing himself back onto his feet again and pushing sticky strands of hair out of his eyes. "It'll attract other monsters, and…" He shuddered at the thought as he helped Isaac pull Wings up.

"That's just how things are," Mariner replied coldly. "Everything dies in the end."

Sheba looked up at her brother. He was frowning, looking darkly thoughtful as he watched the others push open the ornate wooden door and head down into the main bulk of the ship. _Something is wrong,_ Sheba thought. Her eyes glimpsed the last edge of Isaac's scarf vanish through the doorway. _Something is very wrong. He only uses that expression before something bad happens._

"…I don't like this."

"I didn't think you did," Sheba replied.

Felix inspected his partially blue hands, scraping off the hydra's blood with his fingernails. He glanced at Sheba. "No Angaran Venus Adept is treated as well as they're treating you, me and Isaac. It's suspicious, even if they say they're Seekers who're against the Mars Clan's rule." The darkness in his irises seemed to increase. "I can't trust them yet, not until we know why they were after that letter and why our parents were involved and killed. Isaac's too docile to honestly care," he added.

Sheba thought for a moment before answering. "I guess you're right, but you've always had trust issues with other people. Isaac's probably just glad to be out of the Venus sector and the conditions we had, so he'll naturally go along with what's happening." She looked down at her hands, tanned and calloused from years of working on the land. "That, and he's curious about life outside of what we know."

"And what about you?" The sudden question made her frown back up at him. "Do you think we're safe here? Am I just being overly pessimistic?"

Annoyed by the severity of the questions, she poked him in the stomach. Hard. "Oh, right, so there was a time when you weren't overly pessimistic about absolutely everything?" She shook her head at him, a hint of her teasing smile gently pulling the corners of her mouth upwards. "You really walked into that one. The way I see it," she went on, "we were already in trouble in the main citadel, so now we have a reason for that. Also, we don't really have much choice but to come with them, 'cos we're out at sea. And I think that Wings and Seer at least are good people with good intentions."

Felix sighed and touched his sore chest, hoping nothing was broken. Wincing as he touched one of the large bruises, he withdrew his hand and closed his eyes. "As long as you're okay, I won't complain. But I still don't like it. What if – ow! Stop that!"

Too late he recognised Sheba's evil grin, the one that showed off all her teeth. Getting her to stop poking him and behave nicely would be nigh impossible. She giggled. "Aw, does it hurt?"

"I object to this form of cruel and unusual punishment!" Felix yelped in reply, catching one of her hands and not letting it go. He tried not to let his temper be further aggravated by his sister's incredibly bitten nails as they continued to jab into the palm of his hand, the rough edges wickedly teasing his skin with the prospect of ripping it open. "It's not funny!"

"Yeah, but it might make you lighten up a little. Hey, Sheba, can I help?" Isaac beamed at them from the doorway, rays of insane happiness shining out from him as if he was a second sun. He was unaffected by Felix's irritated glare and Sheba's thoughtful expression, instead shutting the door behind him and strolling over to the twosome. In his eyes, a spark of marine-blue seriousness surfaced. "Uh…well, actually, I wanted to talk about something else." He ran a hand through his unruly blond hair, as if trying to gather his thoughts in his hands. "I was talking to that Wings girl just before the ship dropped out of the sky, and she said something I kinda didn't like the sound of."

"Maybe they really are up to something," Sheba commented, giving up on poking Felix into submission. "I tried to get Seer to tell me his real name, and he wouldn't tell even when I pestered him."

Isaac swallowed, starting to chew on the end of his scarf. "Well, I asked where we're going…and she said she couldn't tell me 'cos I'm 'not a Seeker yet'. If that's not suspect, then I don't know what is," he added, glancing at Felix. Realising what the older boy was about to scold him for, he quickly pulled the damp, slightly slimy scarf out of his mouth. "So, I reckon that pessimist here is right yet again about how we shouldn't completely trust them."

"Isaac, think before you stick that thing in your mouth again. It's still got hydra blood on it, idiot." Felix shook his head in disapproval, hmphing. "Sounds like we're being conscripted, if what you're saying's correct." _I definitely don't like _that_._ "So, what do we do?"

"I don't think there's much we can do," Sheba replied, looking from her friend to her brother. "We _are_ out at sea right now…"

All three of them were silent for a time, mulling over the possibilities lit up by Isaac's contribution to the conversation. True, being questioned, probably tortured and like as not put to death by the Mars Clan wasn't desirable, but being forced to join a rebel group would only worsen their situation if they were found out. There was no guarantee that either path – going back or staying with the Seekers – would result in living for much longer. And yet, there were only those options…

"Eh, whatever," Isaac said after a few minutes. "It'll work itself out in the end. C'mon, let's go and make dinner before they try forcing something weird down us again."

"If Wings and Seer even recover before dinner…" Felix muttered as he followed the other two through the entrance. A thought made him frown at Isaac. "Isaac, when was the last time you actually cooked without burning something? Or, now I think about, get away without accidentally cutting yourself with a knife?"

The face Isaac pulled was nervous if smiling.

* * *

Feizhi was carefully stacking packages crammed full with paperwork on Kay's table. The thick, leather-wrapped parcels emitted crackly, papery sounds as another of their number was added to the mountainous pile that would take weeks for Kay to completely sort through; she watched from near her flowering aquilegia as the final sheaf was placed precariously on top of another almost identical to it. Some said that making a mountain out of a molehill was pointless, but this was far more than a molehill. The precipitous incline of paper – and, to Kay's sheer horror, the rolls of parchment left near the door – was a mountain assortment similar to the Goma Range in the north.

When the maid left the room, Kay groaned and slumped, depressed and grumpy, into the velvet-lined chair at the table. Her sigh was loud, and it ricocheted around the room for a large fistful of moments, shuddering through the leaves and flowers of her plants. She frowned distractedly at the high ceiling of the tower room, trying to put off the dreariness of the inevitable work she would do that afternoon and well into the silvery evening.

"I _hate_ paperwork."

Setting her face, gritting her teeth so firmly they ground against each other, Kay opened the first packet of crisp papers. She sighed again, this time with refreshed relief. She could handle the reports from the higher interrogators under her command. They were short, concise, easy to understand, and best of all the writing was clear enough for a catastrophically tired Third Lady to read. They even made sense to Garet, if he ever saw them; that in itself was a miracle in paperwork standards, considering how thick-headed her brother could be at times.

Her right hand inched towards the goose-feather shaft of her pen while her eyes absorbed the information before them. Placing the first report on a spare part of the table, she inspected the shaft and picked up her newly razor-sharp penknife to trim the end. Okay. Pen: trimmed to perfection. Inkpot: full, black ink. Paper: lots of. _I can do this. I've done it before. I can do it._

After the fourth report, she pulled off her circlet and placed it on top of an untouched parcel. Ten more strenuously detailed reports later, she shrugged off her over robe. Her pen rapidly skittered across plain sheets of paper as she assessed each report and distilled the important notes from them. A couple of hours later, Kay failed to notice the white pillar candles her maid lit and placed near her while she fell further into the dull oblivion of reading the tedious reports and the tiresome scratch of her pen.

"What the…" Kay sat back in the chair, pushing her hair out of her face with an inky hand and frowning with frustration at the smudged rectangle of paper held in her other. "This can't be right. It must have been slipped in by mistake." She tugged the satin hair tie from her ponytail and exhaled slowly, attempting to calm down. "But it clearly states that it's for me, and my brother answers to Menardi…" She peered at the scruffy writing, the black ink merging together as her eyes tricked her into shutting them so she could rest. None of it wanted to make any sense. _I hate uncooperative paperwork!_ Kay screamed mentally.

It took her the best part of ten minute to decipher, in the candlelit gloom of twilight, what the report said. Once she knew, she got to her feet, stomped over to the casement, and glared out at the city. And when she'd got fed up with glaring, she swore.

"Why do I have such an incompetent idiot for a brother!?" she shouted at herself afterwards. "Why did he go back to the Venus sector with Jenna to try tracking those missing Adepts? At night? In the dark, when the worst monsters come out?" She wanted to cry into her hands with anger. Drawing herself up to her full height, she strode into her bedroom and slammed the door behind her, not caring that the cacophonous, echoing noise woke half of the palace.

* * *

"Come _on_, Garet. Look, the tracks are still fairly clear. It's not going to be difficult to find them." Jenna stood, hands on hips, and eyed her friend. _I know he didn't want to go along with this, but this is ridiculous._ "It's only the forest. You're fine in daylight. What's so different about night-time?" She shook her head and reached out to pull him into the forest, now thick with darkness and more dangerous-looking, deep greeny-blue trees.

Garet held up the torch when Jenna let go of his arm. _'Kay, so she's right about the tracks being kinda clear, but that doesn't really boost my confidence much._ He glanced at the back of Jenna's head as she walked ahead, confident and unafraid. To his mind, the trees and undergrowth were menacing, deadly; everyone knew that the deadliest monsters were nocturnal, and that the worst of those appeared in wooded areas. _So how come Jenna's not scared?_ "Jenna, I just don't like dark forests at night."

"Huh. Some excuse," Jenna called back over her shoulder. She stopped, turning around to face Garet again. Her expression was different. Her little smile was kind, strangely comforting. Even her tone of voice was the same when she spoke. "Look, Garet. We've got weapons, and we can use them, and we've got our psynergy. Don't _worry_ so much about being out at night." She walked over and prised the torch from his unresisting hands. "We can handle this. I wouldn't have asked you to come if I didn't think you could."

He followed her wordlessly, keeping his eyes sharp for any movements in the undergrowth or amongst the branches of the trees. Trying to stay alert and wary made him jumpy, and the occasional owl that flew past them was enough to make him flinch. At one point, he was so lost in the frightening possibilities the forest held he didn't notice that Jenna had stopped and knelt down to look at something until he almost tripped over her. "Oh, damn. Sorry, Jenna. Please don't yell at me."

"I'll let Kay do that when she finds the note you slipped into her reports," Jenna replied, standing up and thrusting the torch into his hands. "Here, hold this." Coming close to the flame that danced in the darkness, almost in imitation of some macabre ritual, Jenna held a fragment of something blue between thumb and forefinger and inspected it closely. Looking up at Garet, she placed the fragment in his free hand for him to look at. "What do you make of it?"

"Looks like wax," he said, shrugging. "So…?"

"So," Jenna replied patiently, "it's the kind of wax used to seal letters and the like. Which means someone opened a letter here – see, the edges are a bit too rough for it to have been melted onto the ground by accident."

The meaning of this slapped Garet in the face. He winced at the prospect. "I seriously wouldn't fancy being those Venus kids when they're caught. They had the letter you were after, and lying to a Mars Adept is worth a thrashing at least…" Shuddering, he dropped the wax back into Jenna's palm and watched her pocket it.

Jenna reclaimed the torch and continued to check the area. "Hm. Looks like there was some sort of scuffle here." The light invaded the darkness, illuminating the areas it was thrust into temporarily. Tracks that had been heading in one direction suddenly stopped, seemed to move around, and then disappear off in another direction completely. "So they went off with these other people, huh? Then we'll just follow them."

Following the unusually well-preserved tracks through the ever-darkening forest, Jenna replayed the events of the last week through her head. Most of it was a meaningless blur of the colours and metal seen in the Mars, Jupiter and Mercury sectors; with technology advancing everyday, nearly everything was old news now, of little importance to her. What she wanted to see – what she desperately wanted to know, to satisfy her famished curiosity as well as for the good of the Empire – were the important factors related to her solo inspection, and why the Lords and Ladies were so godsdamn unnerved by an unruly trio of Venus kids.

_First there was that hanging. Then Kay asked Karst to send me to inspect the home of the three orphans left behind, to find a letter. Then the kids disappeared, and that ship was seen flying, and we've found all these tracks. _Concentrating even harder on her recollections, she didn't notice how the torch dipped towards the ground like the sinking sun. The flames, greedy for more fuel and power, swiftly devoured the wood and raced up along the short stave towards Jenna's unprotected, armour-less hand and arm.

"Jenna! Be more careful!"

She frowned vaguely at Garet, who had snatched the torch from her and extinguished it before the fire could cling to her clothes and attack her. "Garet, that is possibly the most hypocritical thing I have ever heard you spout."

His cheeks burst into bloom at that. "Jenna! How can you be so mean?" He shook his head vigorously to dispel the small yet vividly red roses blossoming on his face. "Never mind. Looks like we've reached the end of the road." Gesturing with a flame-cloaked fist, he strolled into the centre of the large clearing and grinned at Jenna. "Kinda random, such a massively big glade in the middle of a forest."

Chuckling, Jenna made a shrugging motion and gestured at him with a hand. "As it's so big, you fit in with it perfectly. It suits you." She laughed louder at his indignant expression, holding up her hands in peace. "Strange, don't you think, how all the tracks end there and there aren't any others?"

"Well…I guess that is kinda weird. Hey, look at these massive trenches in the earth," Garet replied, kneeling down to get a closer look at the deep furrows in the moist ground. "Reckon we've found where that flying ship was docked, Jenna. I can't think of anything else big enough to get here and make such big ditches."

One of her hands grabbed onto his shoulder and dug into it with her nails. "That means they really are involved with the Seekers! They must have hidden the letter and lied to us on purpose, just to get the thing to the people on the ship. The rapier's more proof that there was something fishy going on, but this discovery –" She was breathless, staring in terrified amazement at the abrupt end to the sets of footprints and the rifts in the soil. Her eyes were sparkling with beautiful excitement when she met Garet's gaze. "This is simply…"

Garet swallowed, nervously prising her nails out of his shoulder. "Okay, so let's get back and report it before any monsters come out and try to eat us," he suggested. _Agh…she scares me when she's like this. Half the time she ends up getting hurt._ "Hey, Jenna, that's the wrong way. Jenna? Jenna, we came that way. Jenna? You're not even listening!" Standing up, he dashed after her as she hurried into the gloom and disappeared, blind to her surroundings and the impending danger that could be anywhere –

A rough conglomeration of sounds shattered the otherwise mill-pond stillness of the night, crashing through his ears and resonating through his head: the sudden rush of snapping twigs and crumbling earth, a sickening crack, a muffled (but recognisable) shriek that was first of pain and immediately afterwards of fear. The noise made him freeze, even if for most Mars Adepts such a thing would be considered degrading and something to sneer at; then again, Garet was already one of those so incredibly dissimilar to the majority that such terror would only be overlooked as yet another of his 'little idiosyncrasies'. Thoughts pulsed painfully through his mind, sticking pins into his head as the vows he had taken to become a guard shot through him at high speed. Knots of guilt and terror started to choke him.

"Jenna!" he called, his voice clogged up with worry.

From what appeared to be a pit, a plume of reddish-orange flame was spat out accompanied by more shrieking – inhuman, bestial shrieking, high pitched and screechy. A trap? Had the people with the ship – Seekers, they had to be now – had they set up a trap for anyone who followed them to fall into? Or was it something else, something natural but cunningly placed by an animal…a monster…

He ran towards the flame, stopping on the edge of a pit that had been hidden by a mesh of mud, twigs, moss, and what seemed to be thin, silvery threads. Casting them aside, he looked down into the hole for the source of the fire. "Jenna! Are you –" He broke off when another rush of fire psynergy lit up the rest of the pit. Sweat broke out on his forehead. "J-Jenna…"

"My leg's broken," she called up, orange waves hurriedly washing over her as she summoned her mental powers again to push back the swarm of insects that threatened to overwhelm her. "I landed on it too hard…and then all these tarantulas came out of the ground and – ugh," she said, the sweaty strands of her bangs limply flopping over her face. She was shuddering every time she touched her core of psynergetic power. The shock and pain from her leg breaking was making it difficult to keep her mind strong enough to use psynergy.

"Jenna, stay still!" she heard Garet yell down to her, just as she completely lost the grip on her power and felt the hundreds of spiny purple-blue legs touch her legs and start crawling over her. "Don't do anything!"

Dimly, as one of the eight-legged monsters scuttled over her waist and up over her chest to look her in the face, Jenna was aware of a psynergetic fire attack scorching through the air around her and in the hole. The horrid scuttling creatures were shrieking again, but when everything went dark and the attack burned out, there was no more sound. Her eyes didn't want to adjust to the darkness, and the multicoloured spots left in her sight insistently stayed there. She heard the sliding noise of someone else slipping down into the hole, and tried to sit up. The pain in her leg objected completely to the idea.

"Jenna?" Garet's concerned face appeared in her vision, illuminated by a small flame he held in the palm of his hand. "Jenna?"

"I'm okay…" Her words slurred together. "Well, maybe not, but I can move…"

Garet lifted her up to relieve the pressure on her leg, hearing her suppressed gasp of pain as he helped her to stand up. "C'mon, Jenna. I'll carry you out, but I'll probably screw up on trying to set your leg straight if it's broken." He was glad she didn't object to him helping her as she had done so many times in the past. _Stupid Mars Clan, making up dumb rules about how you shouldn't show pain and other crap like that. Bloody stupid…at least Jenna gets to be properly human when we're not in the citadel…_

Several minutes later, Garet tied the last pieces of the makeshift splint to Jenna's broken leg. Sitting back and sighing because Jenna was alright, her question took him by surprise. "Hey, Garet. How come you helped me out of the hole and fixed up my leg? That kind of stuff…we're not supposed to…"

"I'm a guard. I've got to protect the person who asks me for help," Garet explained simply. "That's part of the vows you've gotta take to get a position as a guard. If you went back with your leg worse than that, I'd get yelled at so badly." He looked away from her, sadly gazing into the forest. "Besides…I've always looked out for you, right? So I can't just abandon you because of some utter crap the protocol wants us to be brainwashed with. You're my _friend_." (In Jenna's ears, the way he stressed 'friend' sounded…different) "Anyway, we'd better get going before we get attacked by the tarantulas again."

Jenna's sharp features softened slightly. _Yes. He's always been looking after me, since we first met after Mama died. And if it's part of his code or whatever, then it's fine._ She let him help her up and aid her in getting back through the forest, noticing how sad his eyes were. Was there something else she'd missed that had hurt him?

* * *

The weather had made Seer incredibly happy. While the sun shone so brightly and the skies were cloudless, his fear of shrinking in the rain disappeared. It was difficult for the others to keep up with him as he strode on ahead across the sun-blessed landscape that boasted a healthy crop of plants, with only a single destination imprinted firmly into his mind. Sunlight bounced off his hair as he moved.

Isaac watched the Jupiter Adept with confused interest. "Wings?" he asked the girl next to him, "Why's Seer so…bouncy?"

"It's to do with where we're going," Wings replied, smiling gently. Her smile broadened when she glanced back up ahead at Seer, who was waving at them madly. The feeling that Isaac's gaze was trying to rip open her head and get at her thoughts started again, and Wings quickly met his eyes to dispel the unnerving sensation. "I've told you before, Isaac. I can't tell you where we're going yet."

"Y'know, that only makes it seem like you three have something planned for us when we reach wherever we're going," Isaac replied jokily, grinning at her. "Yeah, as if. You guys are too nice to attack unsuspecting people like me." _How long can I keep this up for before she realises we've guessed what's going on and I'm just faking all this happiness?_ The smile seemed to keep her unsuspecting, and he calmed down a bit. Wings was nice enough anyway, and it felt mean to trick her like that. If he wasn't careful, he might get hit by the sharp tongue she occasionally wielded.

Wings returned her gaze to Seer, who was still waving frantically at them from the golden, sun-drenched hillcrest he stood on. "What is it?" she called, cupping her free hand to her mouth to amplify her voice. "Can you see it?" _Sometimes Seer acts like a child when he's in the sunshine…oh well. At least he isn't complaining about something this time._

At the back of the rough line the six Adepts had formed, Mariner checked yet another time that he still had the opened letter securely tucked into the inner pocket of his jacket. The crinkled edges of the paper brushed at his fingers, and he couldn't help but feel apprehensive about handing Jasper's last correspondence over to the Revealer, even if she was the leader of the Seekers. He'd heard every word of the letter when Felix had read it out; knowing that there was more information about him and his past trickling slowly but surely into the Revealer's hands always unnerved him. _I know I'm linked deeply to the Acolytes and why Mars was able to rule over the other Clans. But I don't like how Revealer is insistent on trying to help me when there's nothing she can do._ The strip of crimson cloth tied tightly around his right wrist was pulled at by the resolute wind, and he sighed, touching one hand to his sword's pommel to calm down the emotions inside him. _She knows too much about me._

Sensing that he was being watched, he glanced up. The slight motion of Sheba's head turning back to its original position didn't pass unnoticed. Neither did the way that Felix seemed to twitch when his sister murmured something to him. Mariner eyed the two of them carefully, knowing why they were acting like that; it was common knowledge amongst the Seekers that Mariner managed to unnerve everyone who barely knew him. If it wasn't because of his tawny eyes or his lonely demeanour, then it would be because of how many stories surrounded him. Okay, so he'd spread a couple of those himself. Most of them had just been created by the minds of other. They helped keep his identity and history secret.

They wandered through the dusty town below the hill, letting the locals gossip about them when they were noticed. Seer and Wings were hailed a couple of times by passers-by; at one point they walked past another Adept who regarded Isaac, Sheba and Felix with interest before asking Mariner: "These'll be the ones Revealer's been talking about all week, then? New recruits?"

Mariner ignored the question. "Shouldn't you be in Indra?"

"They're onto us over there, so we've had to retreat and regroup back here in Atteka." The black-haired man glanced at the five Adepts that continued through the town. "What about you, Mariner? Did your squad get cut down again?"

"Lost three. The Second Lady in Angara caught them, and there was a public hanging. They weren't even buried properly, just burned afterwards." Mariner sighed, glancing at the five others as they carried on. "Their kids were going to be taken in for questioning, and would probably end up hanged. As they ran off and we crashed into them, we didn't have much choice but to take them with us." He shook his head. "Getting them to accept will be difficult. I suppose I'll see you around later, Steven."

"Tsk, and you so touchy about _your_ real name. Good luck with Revealer."

When Mariner reached the house on top of the small hill, the others had already gone inside. Pushing the door open, he walked along the passageway until he reached the main room and the sounds of conversation.

"Ah, Mariner, good to see you again. I believe you have something for me?" The Revealer's face was as calm and pleasant as ever, framed by her pale purple hair. She accepted the letter silently, her eyebrows rising when she realised it was already open. For a moment she was surrounded by her psynergy, and she looked at the three Adepts from the Venus sector. "I see."

Seer watched the Revealer nervously as she skimmed through the lines of rushed handwriting, her face expressionless. When she looked back up, he raised his voice. "Revealer…is it true that the Hesperian squad was captured by the Mars Clan?" He was aware of Isaac's disguised blue stare trying to assess him, and hoped to ignore it. "Did they really get caught?"

"I'm afraid so, Seer. And with the loss of three from your squad in Angara, things aren't looking good for us." The Revealer sighed sadly, looking at the map pinned up on the wall behind her. Spread across the continents were small clusters of wax-headed pins; there were no pins on the continents of Hesperia and Indra. Her body pulsed with psynergy again, and the Revealer shook her head when it faded. "It appears that the resistance is buckling under the new pressure the Empire puts on us. We're running out of time to gather the information we need." She turned her gaze to Isaac, Sheba and Felix, smiling gently. "Your suspicions are correct."

"How do you know that?" Felix said coldly, using the strictly polite expression he usually reserved for the Mars Clan. Next to him, Isaac's eyes seemed to crystallise and harden into blue armoured shells.

The Revealer nodded at them calmly. "Considering what you already know and the fact that you read this letter, I must ask you if you would consider becoming part of the Seekers." She observed the apparent lack of reaction before shaking her head and changing her approach. "Maybe we should discuss this privately before you do anything rash."


	6. Questions, Answers

Uh…wow. (stares at screen) _200_ hits? Since when? I didn't realise so many people were interested in the story…whoops, sorry I haven't updated for a bit…but my first homework from school was to write another essay. Joyful.

This (long) chapter has a lot of explaining in it (hence the title). And yes, 'skyscape' is a made up word. After a while, saying 'sky' becomes very tedious.

* * *

Questions, Answers

Seer strained his ears to listen to the conversation going on behind the locked door. The heavily-muffled sound of the Revealer's voice, calmly explaining what she could, was often punctuated by snappy, interrogative phrases that most likely came from Felix; it sounded like he was letting the bramble patch grow up through his skin again, trying to pierce through the Revealer's explanation with steel thorns. Occasionally the softer murmur of Sheba's voice was audible, mostly followed by one of Isaac's cheery statements.

"What can you hear?"

"Keep your voice down, Wings!" Seer hissed in reply, turning on Wings. "We'll get caught if you keep talking so loudly, and you know how tetchy sis can get about how we're always listening on her meetings." The hefty oak of the door was difficult to hear anything through normally, so he concentrated on sharpening his hearing. It was no use – he could still only hear muted voices. Sadly shaking his head, Seer looked back at Wings' expectant face. "I'm not getting anything. Let's go before Mariner catches us."

Inside the room, the Revealer was smiling as she heard the scuffed noises of Seer and Wings trying to leave quietly. Her attention returned to the three Adepts in front of her. "There shouldn't be a problem with us talking normally now they've stopped trying to eavesdrop." She ran her serene gaze over the three Adepts in turn, meeting their eyes without reacting to the different classes of emotion in them. "Perhaps I should explain what the Seekers are honestly after before you draw any more conclusions about us."

"The truth." Sheba bit her inside lip to avoid glancing at Isaac and Felix. Neither of them were in the right mood for her to look at them after answering the question. _They'd just want to know how I did that, or glare at me…_

The Revealer regarded Sheba with interest. "That's correct. We're considered a resistance group by the Empire, but that's only because they believe we're a threat to the grasp they have over Weyard's surface. I suppose you could say that the Seekers do pose a threat to that, but there are specific reasons for releasing some of the Mars Clan's power. You see, originally such a thing as one Clan being able to rule over the others would have been impossible."

"So you're trying to work out why the Mars Clan got so powerful?" Isaac interjected thoughtfully, a glimmer of sunlight caught in his head making his eyes appear to glow inside, like surface waters viewed from beneath. He frowned, starting to toy with his scarf and ignoring the pointed, almost barbed look Felix gave him. "You could just ask the Mars Clan, but I doubt they'd want to tell you how they gained power…"

The Revealer smiled at him, nodding in agreement. "My predecessors tried numerous times to peacefully talk with the Mars Clan, but they presumed we were staging a takeover of their Empire and labelled us as rebels." Clasping her hands together, she closed her eyes and sighed. "In order to understand, we had to resort to infiltrating Mars citadels across Weyard and stealing historical documents related to the rise of the Empire. In the end we found something about Elemental unbalance in the world, and tried to expand on it…"

Sheba glanced sidelong at her suddenly silent brother, trying to work out what he was thinking. She easily recognised the serious, annoyingly unreadable expression he was using as a mask behind which he was critically assessing what he was told, filtering out what he thought passed for truth and what was lies. Jade eyes pretending not to dull at her brother's quiet distrust of the Seekers, Sheba drew away from the subject as calmly as possible to avoid suspicion. "Are you close to finding out what the answer is?" she queried inquisitively.

"I…" The Revealer paused, her body shimmering with the amethyst haze of her psynergy. Meeting their gazes again, she sounded distant when she spoke. "It would be best if I put it this way: no matter what choices you three make, there will soon be an ending to our struggle. I am afraid that is all I can see in the future at the moment, no matter how much I try to sharpen my precognition." For the first time during the meeting, she frowned after pooling her psynergetic abilities together to use her foresight. "Wait…it appears that there are others you will meet who will be a part of this ending. These others are close to you already, although you don't know them."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sheba asked.

"I'm sorry, but there's no more I can tell you," was the reply. The Revealer's gaze almost unnoticeably flicked to the still-silent Felix. "Although…two of them are deeply linked to _your_ past and future, buried almost as deep inside you as your natural distrust of others and your desperation to protect those close to you." What she said made the Venus Adept look up at her with a light etching of disbelief and confusion on his otherwise stony face. The Revealer shook her head. "That is all I can say."

Isaac cocked his head on one side, absent-mindedly putting a corner of his scarf in his mouth and meditatively chewing on it. _It doesn't matter what we choose, an ending's coming anyway? So we're gonna get wrapped up in this mess anyway? And people are linked to Felix?_ He failed to notice a trickle of his saliva dripping onto the fabric of his scarf. "Um…hey, can we have some time to think before we give an answer?" He looked expectantly at the Revealer.

"Of course," she replied, noticing how the dragonfly-blue armour over his eyes was being taken off piece by well-forged piece. "What you do is entirely up to you."

* * *

"…and then she said we could go," Isaac finished, smiling almost as brightly as the sun was shining. Almost. Inside he was as apprehensive about everything as Felix looked; what they'd been told unnerved him slightly. _All that about elements being out of balance didn't sound good. I don't know if we should get caught up in it or not._ "I think she went to track down Mariner. Shouldn't he be with you, though?"

Wings laughed at his naivety, secretly intrigued by how he could think that. "No. It's safe for us to wander round on our own here. Atteka's held out against the Mars Clan's armies for years, and it's never been taken over. Besides," she added, sharing an amused glance with Seer, "Mariner has a tendency to try avoiding the Revealer. He's never able to hide for long enough, though." Her eyes snagged on a trader's stall dripping with azure silks and rainbows of multi-faceted gems; they gleamed like the rain Seer was so afraid of. It took large amounts of her willpower to drag herself away and catch up with the others as they, apparently utterly unaffected by the delights held by the stalls, meandered through the exotically colourful market. Then again, three of them had never even seen something like this – would have always been tossed away if they even managed to reach a market in the Mercury or Jupiter sectors. At the thought, she seethed. _I hate the way people treat Venus Adepts like lowlife in Angara!_

"Wings, I know you like shopping, but you shouldn't waste so much time here on the market outskirts," Seer called back to her. He shook his head, sighing as he turned to the three Angarans. "Wings is nice enough, and she's good at her job, but sometimes I think it's partially her fault my sanity went on a permanent holiday." Opening his eyes, he noticed the blank looks he was getting. "Don't you know what a holiday is? A day you don't have to work…"

"A day you don't work is a day you don't eat," Felix snapped in reply. "That's how it works in the Venus sector. No work means no pay, so no food. And then it's even worse for the serfs, who only get fed what they're told they've worked the worth of." Sharp eyes flashing with burning anger, he glanced at the rest of the market. "We'd have to save for years to afford even the smallest item here. And then, where would the point be? The Mars inspectors would just take it away, and it's not something you can eat."

Isaac gestured with his hands to tell Seer not to press the subject, before going on to attempt calming his now-fuming friend. "Yeah…and we always got time to stop working during the day, anyway, so we didn't need days when we do nothing. Y'know, Seer, sometimes I don't get half of what you say."

Turning to Sheba, Seer frowned at her. "_I _don't understand you three. I mean, how can you be related to him?" He gestured at Felix with a hand. "You don't look anything alike, for starters."

Sheba frowned back at him in amusement she didn't bother to hide, giggling as if she was tipsy. Still laughing, she poked Seer's shoulder as she went past him to jab her brother firmly in the ribs with a pointed elbow to make him stop arguing with Isaac about why he should stop eating his (now fairly damp and partially mustard-coloured) scarf. "I'm _adopted_." Her giggles faded, almost as if she'd put a heavy stopper in the liquor it had sounded like she'd been drunk on, and she smiled up at her brother. "Felix found me in the woods when I was a baby, and Jasper adopted me." When she was satisfied that Felix had stopped glaring, Sheba frowned at Seer again. "I thought you knew Jasper. Didn't he tell you?"

"Mind was always on the job," Wings shrugged, finally catching up with them. "Sometimes he was a bit…distant from everyone else. Almost like he was only in for one thing – and not even Mariner knows what that is…was, I mean…"

The five of them left the psychedelic, bustling market in the centre of the town and headed for the dustier, less-packed outskirts. Puffy clouds of dust and sand blew in and dispersed out of existence as the Adepts' steps kicked the fine dry soil into the air. Long, thick clumps of vividly-green marram grass sprouted from the earth alongside the thin, rarely-used track they clambered up to reach the top of the hill overlooking the town; the nearby river, easily visible from the peak of the hill, glimmered in the dazzling golden sunshine like it was the star-bedecked night sky. In the distance, a tall, purple building that jutted out of the ground near the mountain range was shrouded with thick cottony mist, almost as if it was being prepared for burial whilst still standing. Vague rays of violet light could be seen weakly emanating from the tip of the building, only just visible above the white haze.

"What's that building?" Isaac asked, pointing at it as he looked at Seer and Wings.

Seer's expression became overcast when he noticed what Isaac was pointing out. "That's Jupiter Lighthouse," he replied, risking a glance at Wings. "It's been lit for ages – the Revealer says for centuries or millennia. There's others like it on other continents." _Of course, with Mars Lighthouse being the only one not blacked out with fog_, he mentally added bitterly. _All the other Lighthouses are clouded over. That's why the Mars Clan got so powerful._

"Something bad happened there," Felix said bluntly. He turned away from the building and sat down, looking down the hill at the dock and the clear, blue sea. "It's not a good thing to see." When Wings and Seer dared to glance at him, his long hair obscured his face, blown across it by the teasing wind. There was no more he wanted to say.

Isaac frowned at the Lighthouse, unable to see what badness Felix had mentioned. Perplexed, he folded his arms and squinted at the lilac structure. He shook his head, still confused. "Sure, it looks a bit downcast with all that fog now, but on a really clear day the view should be great. It'd be a great thing to see then, all that colour comin' out of the forest." Glimpsing Wings' sad expression, he became concerned. "Are you okay?"

She tightened the white ribbon in her ponytail and gazed sadly at the desolate, mist-cocooned landscape around the pillar of the Lighthouse. "That's the thing. The fog never lifts." For a moment her eyes looked lifeless, empty, when she looked up at Isaac. "It's the same around Mercury Lighthouse, near where I'm from. The light can't shine through the fog. My order has been looking for ways to lift the fog for hundreds of years…we've never had any luck."

"Aren't you a Seeker?" Sheba pointed out, sitting down next to Felix on the gold-tinged hillside. "What d'you mean by your order?"

Wings smiled gently. "I wasn't always a Seeker. I was born in Imil, in northern Angara, which is where the Angelical Healers are from. That's my order," she explained. Another memory surfaced from the depths of the pool in her mind. "My father died when I was little, and then my protector abandoned me."

"Some protector," Felix muttered. He yelped when Sheba poked him.

"I met Mariner at about that time…I was eight or nine. He pulled me out of a snowdrift and handed me over to the Healers to be looked after." _Why did it…why did I say that? That's a lie. That didn't…oh. Yes. Telling the truth would be more dangerous…_ "I've been a Seeker since I was eleven – well, it made sense for someone trying to remove the fog to help find the cause of it." _Why am I telling them this anyway?_

Nodding with understanding, Isaac glanced at Seer, who was staring at Jupiter Lighthouse with even more lifelessness trapped in his blank eyes. "So what about you? Why're you a Seeker?"

"Hm?" Seer blinked a couple of times to put the natural gleam of life back in his face. "Why am I a Seeker?" He looked thoughtfully at the sandy ground, stirred it with his foot to gather a meaningful answer from his mind, and at last tipped his head back to watch clouds skitter across the peaceful cerulean sky. "I've probably been one since I was born. I've always been close to the Revealer, and things like the Empire and the unbalanced Elements have always weighed on my mind. I guess I just want to help out, in all honesty." Noticing a grey-tinged cloud lazily tumble across the skyscape, Seer swallowed nervously and glared at it with all the vehemence he could muster. _If that cloud dares to rain on me…I will…I will…_

While Wings and Seer disputed the importance (or stupidity, as Seer argued) of rain to lift their minds out of the bog of memory, Isaac slumped onto the sand next to Felix and Sheba. Sitting cross-legged, he lifted his eyebrows at the two of them dozing calmly in the sunshine. "Y'know, sometimes you two are just like cats in a sunbeam."

"Sheba," Felix murmured absently, "next time he's annoying, make sure you strangle him properly with that scarf."

"Alright." Sheba leaned her head on her brother's shoulder, yawning as she opened her eyes. "Should I try that now?"

Isaac scrambled out of their way and protectively hugged his scarf although it was still wrapped loosely around his neck. He fingered the bright yellow knot on his left shoulder, making sure it wasn't going to come undone any time soon unless _he_ wanted it to; as long as he made the knot complicated enough, Sheba would be unable to untie it without his expertise on the important matter of tying and untying a six-foot-long yellow scarf from around his neck. "There's nothing wrong with being a cat in a sunbeam!" he protested. "I didn't mean it in a bad way…"

"You do realise you're going to die?" Felix replied, opening an eye and glancing at Isaac.

Wings shook her head at the three of them in disbelief. "They must be insane. How can they stay alive around each other?"

Shrugging in reply, Seer just watched the three-way argument unfold in front of him. _Trying to find an explanation for this would be too difficult,_ he thought, grimacing when a drop of something wet and cold hit the top of his head. Biting his lip to avoid cursing as the rain began to slam into his face, he scowled up at the darkening thunderclouds.

* * *

Pain brought a strange, previously unknown clarity into her life. Her senses felt acutely sharper than before, and somehow the pain in her leg helped her concentrate on memories of her life before she'd been taken on as Karst's protégé. It focussed her mind so much that, beyond the natural sensations of hurt and the indescribable pain of her bones being pushed back into position, she could clearly see all the minute details of her earliest recollections. For some unexplained reason, there were moments when the memories were so completely vivid, so incredibly and yet impossibly realistic, that tears gathered in her eyes and dutifully attempted to remain there. She knew there was little point in showing that there was pain in her mind as well as in her body; it would be despised as a sign of weakness.

It wasn't her first visit to the infirmary, with its bright, almost gaudily white walls and severe, black-rimmed windows. However, it was the first time she'd been admitted as a patient; any other time she'd come was merely to check up on her injured friends and companions. She'd already been issued with plain white hospital robes to wear instead of her usual silvery-red armour. The spacious room she was in contained only a small child's handful of patients, herself included, all of them waiting as patiently as their temperaments would allow them to be declared fit for service again. The light coming through the window glass was harsh, unforgiving; Jenna assumed it was to remind the patients that they should be working for the Empire instead of being healed. At times it felt like the light, made even brighter by the whitewashed walls and ceiling, was the eyes of the Lords and Ladies, glaring at her for her pathetic performance.

"Hey."

Jenna turned her head to where the voice was coming from. "Garet…"

He grinned at her and sat on a nearby stool. "You okay? Look, you've gotta be better than me. I just got so chewed out by Lady Menardi, you wouldn't believe. Reckon she's having a bad day, 'cos she yelled at the next person to come in as well." Folding his arms, he nodded towards Jenna's bound-up leg, looking concerned. "How long are you gonna be stuck in this white hellhole for?"

_It's the look he had on his face all the way back here_, Jenna realised as she shuffled through the notes in her memory till she found what the Healer had told her. She pulled an apologetic face, sounding rueful as she spoke. "A couple of weeks, when their healing's finished its work on my leg. It's a bit slow, but still faster than it would have been last year." Lying back on the pillows, she sighed with regret, feeling the stark white sheets rustle uncomfortably against her scraped knees, cut hands, scabbed elbows…nearly all of her skin was injured somehow from the tumble into the tarantula nest. "Sorry for getting you in trouble with the First Lady."

"It's me who should be sorry," Garet replied, his eyes turning to the austere flagstones that paved the infirmary floor. "…I could've…y'know…stopped you from falling anyway. So it's my fault for not stopping you." Underneath the apologetic words, Jenna thought she could see a small, compact and intense core of something else smouldering inside him, flashing with supernova brightness occasionally but mostly compressed into rough, deep ruby-coloured submission. Despite the fact she could see it, exactly what it reflected within him was hidden by the strength of the barriers he created inside him…

"Hmph. I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

Garet automatically stood bolt upright and bowed. "Milady Karst." Straightening up, he fixed his eyes on a piece of the wall behind the Second Lady's head to avoid any unwanted nervous twitches created by facing her. "Lady Menardi wished that I presented Miss Jenna with my apologies for not taking better care of her. I will leave immediately."

Karst's blood-red gaze bored holes in him, creating a brittle latticework through which she could easily penetrate his mental defences and force some basic sense into him. "That will be unnecessary. I wanted to talk to the two of you anyway, regarding last night's…excursion." She regarded Jenna with disguised concern expertly painted on her face, with only a repressed glitter in her eyes betraying her. "Although…Jenna, precisely when are you going to be released from the infirmary?"

"In a couple of weeks' time, Lady Karst. Forgive me for my inappropriate behaviour last night. I only wanted to help, but now I've made myself little more than a hindrance to the inspectorial squad." Jenna nodded her head as respectfully as she could at her leader, hindered by her inability to sit up and how tightly the sheets were tucked under the mattress. "I can perfectly understand why you would wish to punish me." When she glanced up, she had to bite back sudden shock; the Second Lady had lifted the blank sheets and found Jenna's splinted leg. Now she passed one hand along the broken shin, injecting a combination of red, purple and orange healing fire into the bone to encourage the mending. Jenna found the sensation was even more unnerving than the pain-induced sharpening of her senses and memory: her limbs seemed to gently tingle with psynergy, and there was a defiant, insistent force ordering the crack in her shinbone to mend. She felt Garet's concernedly amazed gaze prickle her skin, but not uncomfortably.

Satisfied, Karst withdrew her hand and returned the sheets to their original, unruffled position. One of her eyebrows vanished into her pinkish-red bangs when she caught the suppressed astonishment distilled multiple times in the faces of the two Adepts. "I'm not about to let one of the best in my squad be out of action for two weeks. That leg should be fixed in a week."

"But…Lady Karst…I'm still practically a novice…there are many more experienced inspectors in the squad…I…" Jenna realised she was floundering for words to string into a sentence and closed her mouth to avoid losing more of her dignity.

"That didn't stop you from somehow working out that the second solo I was going to send you on would be to follow those tracks behind that incinerated cottage." Karst glared at the two of them, daring them to speak and suffer the wrath of the whiplash her words could become. "Since when could Mars Adepts read minds? And then, precisely what did you find besides a tarantula nest?"

Before either Jenna or Garet could reply, a series of loud banging noises gradually increasing in volume crumbled the perfect stillness of the infirmary into minute, meaningless fragments of soft chalk to be brushed off a child's writing slate. The tiles reverberated with the hollow sound of quick, angry footsteps practically stomping on the depressingly clean floor, maybe slapping a little colour into the palace's otherwise white and overly dull infirmary wing. Several moments after the first few _bang_s they could hear someone muttering irately, effortlessly clouding up the lack of silence with muffled death threats and only partly-obscured swearwords. The sounds ricocheted around the wards, serving only to emphasise the anger and complete irritation of the speaker. After more moments of fuming walking noises, the Third Lady of Mars flung open the doors and strode imperiously into the room. She came to an abrupt halt a foot from Jenna's bedside, nodded curtly at the invalid girl, and inclined her head with a little more respect towards Karst. "Lady Karst, good afternoon."

Karst returned the nod, fixing a neutral look on her face. "Lady Kay, to what do we owe the pleasure?" She had to be civil to Kay, or her older sister would probably brush Karst off without a thought for the rest of the week. Menardi was protective of her student. "This is an unexpected visit."

"Lady Karst, if I am interrupting I will of course leave." Kay slid her hands into the wide sleeves of her peach over robe, her fingers automatically touching the hilts of the small knives concealed in the silk. Underneath her regal robes she wore her breastplate and chainmail. No matter how much she respected the ferociously unforgiving Second Lady, it was always safer to be prepared when going to meet Karst, just in case. "However, I would like to have a few words with my brother before he returns to his other duties. If I may borrow him for a minute?"

Her replying nod almost invisible, Karst glanced at Garet. "Go. I will speak to Jenna and get you later."

On Garet's forehead perfect glassy beads of sweat were forming while he followed his sister out of the infirmary. _She's gonna yell at me. Or chuck a plant pot at my head. Or disinherit me. Or something. _He swallowed the globule of terror in his throat painfully, pretending to not chew his lip as they entered the main, tapestry-infested hallway and carried on towards Kay's tower. _If we're heading for her rooms, definitely the plant pot. Aw, damn, it took ages to pick up the pieces afterwards, and she nearly knocked me out. And that was for something nowhere near as serious as this._ Noticing his reflection in the mirror-coated corridor near the Lords' and Ladies' meeting room, Garet tried desperately to stop frowning with fear and concentrated on the back of his sister's head, on the thin gold circlet perched perfectly on the crown of her head just above the root of her long, thick ponytail of ginger hair. In spite of the warmth that permeated Kay's tower the further up the spiral stairs they climbed, Garet only shivered with frightened apprehension. _This is worse than a plant pot. She's probably gonna kill me._

The door clicked shut behind him, and Kay swiftly turned the key in the lock before returning to her desk and retrieving, from the unending paperwork pile sprawling indefinitely across the mahogany, an oblong of thin paper with smudged writing on it. Removing the circlet from her head and coming back around the table, she flourished the document at Garet. Her eyes were filled with anger; he desperately didn't want to aggravate her. "Never again," she told him.

He jolted, frightened by Kay's completely unexpected words. "Wh-what?"

"Never do _this_," Kay replied, shoving the paper brusquely in his face, "again. Get it? Never."

Just as he was about to take the paper from her fingers, she snatched it away and began ripping it, holding it up and tearing it down the middle several times before grabbing a wastepaper bin and liberally brushing the torn pieces off her hands and into the bin. He could only stare at her, still expecting a handy plant pot to emerge from the folds of her robes and be thrown at his head. "Kay…"

"If you have to tell me something, don't do that. Send a message with someone, anyone, or come yourself and talk to me. Never put something in my paperwork. Never." She was trembling, although it looked like only Garet noticed. It wasn't anger in her eyes anymore. Something else presided there. "Do you have any idea how much you made me worry, you stupid bastard? Any idea at all?" Her brow was knitted together, and she was biting her inside lip. She shook her head as she talked. "Sometimes you make me so mad, Garet. So mad."

"Kay, I don't get what –"

"Shut up." She clasped her hands together and strode away from him, stopping by the arched window and watching the citadel as it simmered in the afternoon heat. When she spoke, her voice was quieter, more remorseful… "I don't know what I'd do if you disappeared from my life. You're lucky. You can still keep in touch with Mom and Dad and…and our grandparents. I can't do that. I'm not allowed to talk to those on the outside. I have to be above everybody, untouchable. Any idea how much that hurts?" She pressed her fingers to her tear ducts so the liquid forming in her eyes wouldn't precipitate down her face, and turned back to her brother. "That…that thing you sent me made me worry so much, Garet. So much. In this…this place I don't have anyone except myself. Except you. Sometimes I panic that you'll just – disappear one day, and I'll go mad. I'll turn into some kind of monster. You're all I've got in the palace, the only anchor I've got to reality. My mind's already screwed up enough as it is, all this bloody paperwork and stupid dreams and a lot of other crap. Don't leave me."

_I'm practically free. Me and Jenna, we're free to do what we like when we're not on duty. Kay doesn't even know she's had another little brother for the last nine years, or that grandma passed away last month. They didn't let her go to the funeral._ Garet gazed at his sister, still trying to retain her grandeur and explain everything to him. _They didn't _tell _her. Why didn't I?_

"Please, Garet. If I lose you, I'll become like the other Lords and Ladies. I wouldn't be real anymore, just some substance-less thing that knows nothing. I'll be some sort of animal." Kay sat down in her chair with her elbows on an empty bit of desk and her head in her hands. "Don't make me that scared again. Now go."

"Kay –"

"Go."

* * *

Listening to the winds: a task done by only those who could begin to understand the scrambled snippets of airborne information. The winds were always fickle beings, forever changing their courses, their attributes, what knowledge they wanted to hold in their breezes and wispy zephyrs. If a person could bear to wait long enough, buffeted by the weather and the raw strength of the air, they could learn more than the average human would expect. As the Revealer stood outside her house on the hill, ignoring the torrent that so frightened Seer, she sharpened her ears and pursued the words hidden within the blustery air currents, slowly closing in on what she sought in the winds.

She opened her eyes and calmly made her way round to the back of the house, drawing her wrap closer around her body to stop shivering in the cold. Water cascaded down her face in a transparent surge as she turned the sharp corner and coolly gazed into the dry, nearly unnoticeable alcove tucked conveniently into the side of the house. "I should have known better. It seems you're running out of hiding places, Mariner."

"These days they're more waiting places." He met her gaze easily, waiting for her to ask the question he was expecting. "I presume you're going to ask me about that again, Revealer. With all due respect, talking about it is uncomfortable, so I'd rather not."

"Mariner, you know full well how deeply your past is entwined with the Elemental unbalance. If we're to ever fix the mess Weyard's got into, at the very least _I_ need to know about what happened all that time ago." The Revealer shook her head sadly; drops of water flew from her hair. Just waiting for the Mercury Adept to relinquish that story was next to pointless, considering how long it would take. "I've been concentrating on those three from the Venus sector's arrival for some time, so I've been unable to check on your progress as much as I would like to. I don't suppose you would discuss that?"

Folding his arms, Mariner leant back against the wall, deliberately transferring his gaze to the saturated ground and considering what he could say. _Too much and she'll try to wring more out of me. I have to tread more carefully every time she asks._ "It's difficult to explain. Remembering things – anything from more than a month ago – is painful now. It's particularly difficult if the painting's nearby." Rain pelted him in the face as he looked up into the steely sky, reflecting on what else he could say. "I believe this is to do with starting to age like normal people, but there's no proof of that."

The Revealer raised her eyebrows. "Aging normally? Only after all this time?"

"It…takes time for the spring water to lose its effects," Mariner replied slowly. "As long as I can stay away from Lemuria, I'll continue to age like a normal person. Maybe that will be the end of him – when I die. I've waited long enough for that. Far too long."

"So he hasn't tried to escape from the frame recently," the Revealer murmured, gently frowning. "That's certainly progress from the earlier days of the binding." She shook her head again, trying to subtly catch his attention and hold it until she had wat she wanted. "How long can the bind be held for?"

Mariner's eyes immediately flicked to the red scrap of material bound around his right wrist. He fingered the knot and let his psynergy seep into the fabric, the aquamarine waves of his power expertly assessing the binding. Withdrawing his psynergy into its natural core, he clenched his teeth. "As long as necessary," he said firmly, eyes stonily fixing on the Revealer's. "But it can only be broken by me returning home, _when_ there is proper balance on the island. May I ask…why precisely do you want to know that? It's little to do with you."

Fingers checking the tightness of her purple braid, the Revealer sighed apologetically. "This won't sit well with you, I know. You recall the alchemist from Tolbi, the one who went to Mt Aleph to discover the importance of Sol and Luna in the Elemental unbalance? He found ancient scriptures in the Sanctum there, scriptures so old no living human can read them. Deciphering them might give us untold amounts of information…"

An upwards glance confirmed her suspicions. Mariner had almost vanished into the shadows of the alcove, hiding from the outcome. Eventually he spoke again, stiffer than wood. "I know what you're going to say, even though I can't read minds like you or Seer." He shot her a dark look over his shoulder. "You're probably correct that he could read them. But releasing him would be folly for all of us, especially the two Venus boys. Revealer, you can't force me to go back home. It could kill those who come with me."

"At least that means you'll release him." She smiled at his slightly startled expression. "Dear me…you're reacting like a normal person. Then again, you always were unlike any reports of your people." Holding out a hand, she caught a few droplets of rain in her palm and glimpsed her reflection in the small pool. "He'll be away from you, Mariner. After he's been released, I want your squad to return to the Angaran citadel and take advantage of a celebration coming up to infiltrate the Archives and take what's there on the Mars Acolyte."

Mariner flinched. "The end of the Venus Uprising."

"Yes. According to Jasper's letter, there are runes at the bottom of one of the mines in the Venus sector. Try to decode those properly as well." The Revealer let her psynergy rush over her for a few seconds before turning to leave. "The three from Angara…the orphans…I'll assign them to your squad. I can sense their answer from here…" She trailed off, stepping further into the downpour. "Mariner, what can you say about them?"

"I don't really know them well enough to trust them fully. But…Isaac's one who would help anybody, no matter what the situation. Sheba's a tease, but she's sensible and just as willing to help as Isaac. As for Felix…he _is_ Jasper's son. There's bound to be more on his mind than just wanting to help, even if he's set on that."

"Is he…" The Revealer made a small slashing sign in the air with a hand.

"Possibly. But the crucial thing about the three of them is that they work well together, and they're able to get on with Mia and Ivan." He watched, yellow eyes impassive but his mind in the uproar of a maelstrom, as the Revealer walked back around the corner and evaporated into the opaque fog forming over the town. _So. That's what she wants._ His hand strayed to the hilt of his sword, and he gripped the leather-bound handle to gradually work away the unrest inside him. _I don't want the feud to start again. That's the risk of releasing him. And…it means the others will find out about me._

While the other Adepts met the Revealer inside, glad to talk and laugh about something or other, Mariner sat in the tumultuous rain and bit hard on his lip, drawing blood occasionally, to draw his attention away from the pain of remembering life before he'd sealed that man inside the picture frame. The danger. The mental and physical torture.

But most of all, the bitter fear of knowing someone wanted his blood.


	7. Dreaming

I had to stop myself from naming this chapter 'Italics', and you'll see why. Instead, I named it after a Blondie song…well, sort of. I listen to too much 70s/80s music.

What else…oh, yeah. Nice try, NonFiction, but not lighthouseship. I can understand why, but that's not the case. Felix and Sheba treat each other as brother and sister, end of. You might click on what the last ship is after this chapter, but I'm not saying yet. (evil grin)

Yeah, whatever. Another long information chapter, but there are some links to the future in this as well. Ah…I love writing strange things.

Okay, and finally, a few days have passed… (Also, Garet misheard 'insubordination'. And yes, 'sextet' is a real word. It means there's six of something. It's not dirty.)

* * *

Dreaming

_Ivan stumbled after his sister, trying to keep up with her long strides across the open grassland. The long blades of grass jabbed at him through his clothes; __sometimes the pollen released from the miniscule flowers his steps disturbed got up his nose and made him sneeze. He almost fell on his face again as his foot collided with an unmoving lump of black marble unexpectedly sticking out of the fairly damp ground. Glancing up at the sky (in case of his worst fear: rain), Ivan forced himself back onto his feet and jogged after his sister again. He didn't understand why she'd brought him with her to Angara, but he didn't want to be left alone so close to a Mars citadel…_

_They continued across the muddy grasslands, his sister ensuring the winds left no trace of their tracks behind. Occasional pools of water, waiting to be drained away by the hungry soil and famished plants, appeared as tiny oases amidst the muddy-green desert Ivan now presumed made up all of Angara. He'd never left his home continent of Atteka before, and knew little of other places __or the terrain in those places. Lumps of rock in the middle of grass almost up to his waist were just another of the bizarre things about this place. But what he found even more strange was, when he looked up beyond his sister's rapidly-moving form, the winged ship apparently berthed in the middle of an open plain. It made him stop instantly, frowning deeply with bemusement, as his nine-year-old mind raced through the possibilities and crashed at the first hurdle. There were _no_ possibilities…_

"_Ivan, keep up. We're almost there."_

_Frown still festooning his face, Ivan pushed his slightly-matted hair out of his face and followed his sister towards the ship. He presumed it was a ship anyway. It didn't look like any normal ship he'd ever seen or heard of. As he got closer, almost getting stuck in a particularly boggy patch of land, he saw that there were people on the sail-less ship – only two figures, both dressed in various different shades of blue, but at least there was life aboard it. He still shuddered every time he remembered how his sister had taken him into Jupiter Lighthouse to 'meet someone' and that person had turned out to be a _spirit_ trapped in one of the statues…_

_Suddenly he was actually on the ship, standing opposite a smiling girl with pale blue hair and eyes. She must have been a couple of years older than him – he refused to believe he would be short for all of his life. It was something he had to prove. He was not going to be short for eternity…_

He rolled over in his sleep, smiling absently at how foolish he'd been when he was younger. It was certainty these days that he couldn't do anything about his…vertically challenged state. Still asleep, he clutched at the blanket and scowled at the nuisance the truth always was.

_Now he was listening at a__ thick oak door, with the blue girl next to him. He had to keep saying, "shh!" to her – the way she giggled at random moments was off-putting and would be enough for his sister and the yellow-eyed man to find them and make them sit in the crow's nest for an hour as punishment. What snippets of the conversation he was able to hear were confusing, cryptic, sentences that made no clear sense. _Why can't my sister hold nice, understandable conversations with other people? _Ivan despaired, his shoulders slumping as he missed yet another piece of information._

"_What can you hear?" the girl queried, abruptly becoming serious. Her interest in the grain of the floorboards increased dramatically the moment Ivan frowned at her. "Mariner…he's been hiding things recently. All I know is something about Acolytes being important factors for something or other, but nothing more. I'm worried about him." She met Ivan's gaze with her__ serene aqua eyes; they were filled with nothing but honest concern. "He keeps getting more secluded and secretive, so…"_

"_I can't really hear much with you talking, Mia." Oh, so they'__d been introduced at some point. Why wasn't he seeing everything in the dream, only little fragments? "My sister doesn't tell me much anyway, and she's good at being quiet when she's talking." He adjusted his position to fix his ear to the door again and felt the smoky wisps of his weak psynergy rise inside him, until eventually he was surrounded by the lilac haze of his mental powers. Aware that Mia had stopped talking and was calmly waiting for him to concentrate, Ivan closed his eyes and felt the haze dissipate into the door. It wasn't as refined as a Mind Read, but it was good enough for him._

"…_can perfectly understand what you're saying, Mariner. But we need to know if we're ever to help the Mars Clan stop devouring itself. With the Elements completely out of balance, anything about how the Acolytes were wiped out in the first place is –"_

"_You think I don't already know, Hama? He's trapped in the frame at the moment. Releasing him would lead to me fighting him, and probably both of us going. Besides that…the likelihood of him parting with how he managed to destroy the Mercury, Venus and Jupiter Acolytes is too low for me to risk it." There were the sounds of someone moving around, their boots heavy against the wooden floor, and the _clink_ of glass against glass followed by the accelerating _doukdoukdouk_ of liquid being poured. "Let him mellow awhile in the frame. I don't want him to escape again and cause more trouble."_

"_Mariner, in all the years the Seekers have known you –"_

"_No, Hama. I don't want another repetition of the Venus Uprising. That almost made the situation so much worse – it could have destroyed anything the citadel here had on the Acolytes and played right into his hands. All he wants is to destroy me by any means possible. He doesn't care about anything but the feud."_

_Ivan drew back from the door, unsure whether he should be frightened or in awe of Mariner. Whoever the man trapped in the frame was, he was part of the problem that Hama was set on solving. He might have been the cause of the problem. And the man called Mariner, the strange Mercury Adept of no clear origin, had been able to seal this powerful man – someone after his blood – away…_

_But he didn't tell Mia that. He didn't want her to be frightened for Mariner…_

* * *

_Inside his dream, the boy called Garet glared at the flower-bedecked girl in front of him. He must have been…what, four years old? Yeah, that had to be about right. Looking around the room, lit and heated by the roars of the dancing fire that flared in the hearth, he recognised it as his parents' living room. Shock knocked on his head as he noticed the decorations liberally festooning the walls and surfaces. Christmas. Christmas when he was four. But…that was the year that Kay was…_

_Grabbing a fistful of marchpane from the bowl between him and his sister, Garet stuffed the almond sweets in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. His conscious mind –_ his seventeen-year-old mind _– was confused, concerned by what he was being shown in his dream; it had been that evening that his family had been struck so hard a blow from the palace that his parents never fully recovered. Fate and Destiny never smiled on Garet, that much he was absolutely certain of. Had he known at the time what was due to occur, he would've…he would've…_

_His sister tucked another winter flower into her shoulder-length ginger hair; the colours gleamed in the firelight happily, the poppy-red and soft gold flashes in her hair brightening her smile and illuminating her happiness of being with her family. _For the last time till I got my place as a trainee guard, _his conscious remembered._ Mom and Dad never saw her again except for the public celebrations…

_The door resounded with the sheer force of the raps on it. Business-like, no-nonsense knocks. The sort of knocks associated with the 'best' things about the Empire – the outstanding army, the perfect quality of life for those who deserved it, the luck of those chosen to represent their citadel, their Clan, their homeland – repeated, but his mother and father were reluctant to open the front door and let in the knockers. When he saw the visitors, his four-year-old mindset almost exploded with amazement and excitement and (naturally, because it was expected) total awe. The First and Second Ladies of Mars…the _new_ First and Second Ladies, to be precise. What more would be necessary to petrify a child with wonder?_

"_You know why we're here," the First Lady said severely to his trembling mother. Menardi's gaze turned sternly to Kay, fumbling with the blooms in her hair as she hurriedly tried to tug them out without damaging them. "They've said for years that there's nobody suitable for the position of Third Lady. But in your daughter…there is untold potential."_

_The Second Lady nodded, smiling at Kay (quite unpleasantly, in Garet's opinion). "My sister and I think we could tap into her potential and bring out the right sort of qualities the citadel requires for a Third Lady." Her glance returned to his parents, calculated and gauging. "Such an honour for this family, wouldn't you agree?"_

"_I couldn't more, Karst," Menardi replied, squatting down next to Kay and extending a scaled hand. She stroked Kay's immaculate hair, ran her fingers down the five-year-old's skin, and eventually gripped the girl's hand and unceremoniously yanked her to her feet before turning to leave, dragging Kay behind her without so much as another word._

_Garet could only listen to his sister's pleas to be released…_

_For some reason, the back of his sister's head became the back of another girl's head.__ He suddenly felt like he was seven. Mystified, he whirled around to take in his surroundings, calming as he recognised the familiar tapestry-laden walls and the mirror-bright polished marble floor of the smallest ante-chamber in the palace. Voices drifted lazily through the walls; he could hear every single word of the conversation going on in the next room. Grinning with understanding, he turned his attention back to the girl. He proffered a hand when she faced him, and felt his smile doodle all over his face with insane cheer. "Hi."_

_She stiffened, looking almost frightened of his hand. At first words wouldn't come to her, but eventually she relaxed a little under Garet's indestructible gladness. She was so thin and frail that at first Garet didn't know if she was really a Mars Adept or not. Before long though, she managed to curtsey awkwardly and mumble something that sounded like, "Milord…"_

"_I'm not a Lord," Garet replied. _Maybe I look like one to this girl… _"I'm just a trainee guard now – that's pretty far from being a Lord." He smiled at the girl when she looked up frowning. "Who're you? You've gotta be that newbie for the Second Lady's squad, right? It's nice to meet you!"_

"_Garet." The stern voice of the First Lady shot through his head, crushing his warmth towards the girl. "You know full well how to behave in the presence of someone new to the palace. You're meant to follow the rules." He felt her presence make the hairs on the back of his neck stick up. "Now do so."_

_Thoroughly chastised but annoyed at losing the chance to make friends, Garet bowed to the girl. "Good morning, Miss." When Menardi wasn't looking he pulled a face that made the girl giggle. Straightening up, he glanced over his shoulder at the First Lady in all her ceremonial splendour as she glared at one of the tapestries. "Milady, d'you have orders for me? 'Cos I can't think of another reason for me to be here." The moment the words escaped from him, he bit down hard on his lip. He'd used completely the wrong tone of voice, and now –_

_He heard Menardi mutter under her breath about suburb organisation (or something that sounded like it anyway) before adopting her natural chilly tone. "This is Jenna, the Second Lady's new charge. You're to show her the palace and take her back to Lady Karst's chambers by five o'clock. Now get on with it!"_

_When he was certain Menardi had stomped far enough down the mirrored corridor, Garet pulled his grin back onto his face and tried to talk to the girl normally. "Jenna, right? I'm Garet, but everyone says I'm just a misfit. C'mon, let's go before Lady Menardi comes back and starts yelling at me again for something dumb like being nice to you."_

_He decided he liked Jenna's solid, real laughter and the way she smiled at him instead of at what he did. She wasn't trying to put up an illusion around herself, unlike a lot of people he knew. And when she actually started talking to him, she was so different from his secluded and lonely sister that he couldn't help but like her as a person. There was a fresh, earthy quality to her character that made her so definitely real and (underneath her original nerves) forceful it was impossible for him not to become her friend…_

Huh. Not that she knows I want to be more than a friend now…

* * *

_Cold. So cold.__ Her body…so numb, so frozen. Underneath the snowdrift, one that had been created by the night's heavy snowfall that had hammered anyone who'd dared to leave their home, she shuddered and weakly tried to claw her way out of the prison created for her by the frozen heavens. She lost any sensation of feeling in her hands after less than a minute, and knew that soon she would have to give up and wait for the gnawing cold or the monsters to finish her. How long had she been there, lost in the snowfields, before he had pushed her into a drift and left her there? Long enough for her to be thin and gaunt, with only willpower letting her survive in this frozen hell._

_It hadn't been long after her father died that the new arrival in town offered to be her protector. The Angelical Healers had been dubious at first, but e__ventually accepted his proposal; they couldn't look after everyone, no matter how much they wanted to. She'd known the man for nearly half a year before he suddenly disappeared one night, vanishing into the deadly, sharp-edged blizzard that was the worst in Imil's history. Why…why had she followed him out into the prospect of death by frostbite? The snowstorms were always vicious and starving, on the lookout for any unsuspecting creature in their path that could fuel their hunger. She'd known that…and still…and still…_

_She was starting to lose consciousness to the chill. Her clothes had been __warm at first, but now they were damp from snowmelt and only a hindrance to any movement she could make. Worse, with her fingers and arms as deadened as they were, she couldn't do anything about trying to remove the restricting clothes. The only solution she had was to curl up as she started to black out completely…_

…_someone was…lifting her out of the drift? Voice…she could hear a voice, low and kind, talking to her. Her body touched something…it felt like fabric…and she automatically clung to it, her leaden arms finally moving and her small, delicate hands weakly clutching at the material. She was unaware of moving, but vaguely registered in the back of her mind that whoever had pulled her from the drift was probably heading for Imil…_

_Consciousness grudgingly returned to her as she lay in one of the Angelicals' cots in the sanctum. Blissful warmth was calmly __washing through her body, hunting down the splinters of cold inside her and tearing them apart into wondrous nothingness. Her eyelids flickered, pale eyelashes touching more heat into her face, and she gazed up at the heavily brown oak beams that stretched the width of the ceiling. Weakly drawing a thawing hand from under the soft, insulating, woollen blanket, she watched with amazement as she flexed her fingers – the same digits that she thought had surrendered to eternal freezing._

"…_should have realised__ who he was before this happened. Mariner, I am so sorry…"_

"_It's not your fault that he escaped, Great Healer. That sin is mine. At least I was able to seal him back into the frame before he could kill that child." There was a short, uncomfortable pause that resonated with sorrow. "Hama said to tell you that the scrolls hidden in Mercury Lighthouse were of even more importance than you and your predecessors believed."_

_The Great Healer appeared startled, and he drew in a breath. "Then…is the information on our Clan's Acolyte complete, Mariner?"_

"_No…but combining what I brought with me from Lemuria and the Angelical Healers' scrolls from the Lighthouse apparently revealed many things about the reasons for the Acolytes in the first place – and part of how the statues were created." Footsteps tapped across the ocean-blue knotted rug, and the voices got louder. "Ah…she has woken…"_

_She didn't recognise the man who sat down on the chair by her bed, but his presence didn't make her apprehensive or scared; if anything__ it comforted her. It was…familiar, somehow, though she'd never seen anyone like him. In Imil there were primarily Clanless people and Mercury Adepts belonging to the Angelical Healers; he looked like neither. Lifting her head off the pillow, she tried frowning at him. "Who…are you…?"_

_His smile was kind, understanding. "People call me Mariner. It's nice to meet you properly, Mia. I'm sorry for causing you to be hurt like that…" He glanced at something covered completely in a cloth propped up against the cot. "…but he won't be bothering you for a while. I give you my word on that." She noticed how he touched the hilt of the sword that protruded over his shoulder. Was that a way of showing honesty?_

"_Why did you save me…?"_

_Deep within the yellow abysses in his irises, something fluttered into life and darted through his memories. Regret – great fathoms of it – sank into his face for a single moment before being banished by his smile. "I cannot let the division in the Mercury Clan continue as long as I live, Mia. My wish is to mend it. Aside from that, you'll be looked after by the Angelicals from now on. Much better than letting _him_ try to kill you another time."_

_She'd never been able to forget that purely-clear, completely crystalline shard of her past. It made her remember the time before Mariner had become so afraid of his past and his memories…before he'd become distant, even more a stranger than he had been. These days it frightened Mia. Mariner and Ivan were the closest thing she honestly had to a real family__, and if he was breaking apart then…_

* * *

_The first thing he noticed was the rain that insistently churned the pathways through the Venus sector into thick, teak-black mud. __Water rammed into his face, flooding his ears and forcing him backwards no matter how hard he tried to move forwards. Desperately, he glanced up ahead and noticed that his parents were fast disappearing in the nearly opaque shimmer of rain; throwing his scarf over his shoulder in a vain attempt to keep it out of the all-consuming sludge that was spattered over his clothes and skin, he screwed up his face in decided concentration and pushed on through the storm. Lightning forked through the treacly air and viciously slammed into the ground somewhere to the north, taking a hungry bite out of his morale._

_He was suddenly inside a house, tumbledown and incorrigibly messy as it was. __Staring around the room, he almost didn't hear the muted conversation his parents were having with the man who had presumably let them in. It definitely wasn't tidy, but the jumbled confusion of bric-a-brac was (on a closer inspection) not made up of normal household objects. His fingers brushed a ring of what at first had been strange, ornate keys, and he quickly snatched them back; the tip of his left index finger had been nicked by the razor-edged steel, and he gaped at the welt of blood that hotly streamed down towards the palm of his hand. Hoping that nobody had noticed, he slid the wounded finger into his mouth and tried to seal the cut with his saliva._

_More curios littered the room as leaves on the autumnal breeze; aside from the danger of the elegantly-crafted keys, Isaac recognised some of them. A tiny picture frame on the wall, layered with grime, evidently forgotten or meant to be so, sparked a candle in his mind into life. Close by, almost hidden completely by the rest of the ornamental mire that flooded the table, what looked like a limp doll made of cloth scraps lit up another tapering wax candle at the altar to his memories._

This is then. This is when I first met him.

_Careful to not draw any attention to himself, Isaac cautiously prised the rag doll out from beneath the other unrecognisable miscellany and held it almost reverentially in his constantly bruised and battered hands. _

This is the doll meant for…

_Clumping footsteps jerked him from his child's reverie, and he looked up from the doll into a pair of dark eyes. He knew the boy in front of him, who looked to be about six. They were in the same work gang, one that was shunted about wherever they were told to go, irrelevant to what the workers could actually do, and do well. Isaac had often wondered about the boy on the outskirts of the group, never completely involved with the rest but always working at least as hard as them. What had made him like that, outcast from others? He'd sensed general wariness of the boy from the gang for a while…_

_He clumsily fumbled for words. "Hello," he eventually came out with. Nervous of the boy's unmoving stare, he reached for a mud-less corner of his scarf and started sucking on the cloth. Unsure of what to do and chewing on the yellow material even more anxiously, Isaac hurriedly snatched at the fragile straws of thought tumbling through his mind and tried to say something again.__ "Um…" Something he could utter elatedly burst open inside him, and he grinned around his comforting mouthful of scarf. "Nice to meet you. I'm Isaac!"_

"_Son, at least try to be a little more sociable."_

_The dark boy glumly met Isaac's shining eyes again. "Felix," he muttered in reply, before frowning. "Keeping stars in your eyes won't help," he added coldly. "As we won't get anything great out of life, you should let them go. And keeping that _thing_ in your mouth will make you ill."_

"_Such a cynical little thing…" Isaac heard his mother say. "Jasper, how did…?"_

_Blinking at Felix as he turned round and promptly disappeared, Isaac felt more thoughts mix together inside the bubbling pot of curiosity that was always springing up in his mind. Ignoring the boring talk his parents were having, he followed Felix upstairs and into a small, cramped room somewhere in the roof, with floorboards lacerated with beams of weak moonlight and dribbles of rain seeping through holes in the thatch. Isaac tugged the bit of scarf from his mouth and stood behind Felix, still holding the little doll in his small hand and thinking of something to say._

_The older child spoke first. "What do you want?" The words were sharp and…and…almost nervous. But nervous of what? "You're going to live here, but that doesn't mean you have to be my shadow. I've already got enough of those." He gestured at the multiple silhouettes cast by him in the moon's ghostly light._

"_I-is this yours?"_

"_No."_

_Isaac frowned at him. "But you haven't even looked," he pointed out, hurt by being ignored. He took a step back when Felix glanced coldly over his shoulder at the blond boy. "Sorry…I just wanted to know…I mean, so we can be friends. Right?" His optimistically hopeful smile couldn't be diminished at all by the frigid nervousness in Felix's glare._

"_No. You don't want to be my friend. It'll only bring you trouble you shouldn't get into."_

That's right. He was always caught up in a fight for no reason. Never understood why, back then. I just couldn't.

_Isaac's smile only grew wider, and he held out the rag doll. "But isn't it better to have friends? Everything's more fun then. You can work together to get something done quicker. And…"_

"_Shut up." The words were almost frozen with stiffness, uncaring and not wanting to know. The boy sat down on the floor, hugging his knees to his chest. "I don't care. I do what I do, and that way nobody else gets in trouble. Get it? Now leave me alone." In Isaac's eyes, it seemed that Felix was purposefully trying to hide away from him, clamping down on the truth to stop anyone from knowing. "It's nothing to do with you."_

"_If this isn't yours, then whose is it?"_

_Felix mumbled something under his breath in almost total silence, and completely ignored the second time Isaac asked the question. He hunched his shoulders, drawing his knees even closer to his chest and flicking his long hair in front of his face, obscuring his eyes and temples. Isaac sighed, looking down at the damp floor and seeing scuffed charcoal marks turning into dark water as the rainwater mingled with them. How could he handle a conversation with someone so completely unlike him…?_

"_Please tell me?"_

"…_it's…" Felix trailed off, dismally gazing at the charcoal marked. "It was meant to be for my little sister. But she and Mom were taken away. I don't remember them." He glanced up malevolently through his dark veil at Isaac and returned to his stony, bramble-infested self. "Now get lost."_

_It was a start._

* * *

Sleeping was more torturous than remembering things now. Mariner tried to rid his forehead of sweat and only provoked more to chillily erupt over his skin, trickling down his face and dripping off his chin onto his chest. Biting on his lip to pretend it was all illusionary, imagined by his mind after the expertly-jabbed stabs of clear pain his dream had presented him with, he sat up and glanced at the back of the picture frame propped up on the table. Automatically, he touched the knot of material tied to his wrist.

It was pointless trying to get back to sleep. _We'll reach Lemuria in a day at most. I should have expected these dreams._ Telling himself that helped, but not by much. Exhaling, he calmed his mind and reached for his clothes, slipping his jacket and trousers on over his nightshirt and getting out of his bunk. He didn't risk tying his hair back or organising his headdress; his hands were still shaking from the horrific impact the puce memory-dream had forced on him.

A movement in the cluster of secretive shadows around the picture frame made him stop cold, more sweat running into his cat's eyes to obscure what he could and couldn't see. Quickly flicking his eyes in the direction of the picture frame nearly made him gag from the choking, dark intent emanating from it, aimed directly at his mind and heart. Mariner's lip curled with unspoken anger. _Keep trying. You're not getting out yet. I won't let you get at the Venus Adepts again. Or Mia._

The grimly-knotted shadows leered out of the corner at him when he closed the door and headed for the deck, finding comfort in the solidity of the floor beneath his feet that was such a contrast with the whispering, scathing mist that had floated tauntingly in his dream. Reality. Sometimes he needed a heavy anchor to stay in touch with it – an anchor far heavier than the sturdy iron one the ship owned. _I know what I know,_ he mentally told himself. _Whatever _he _says in those dreams are lies. Lies. _He_ will never try to truly understand the origins of the feud, or why it should end._

Once he reached the crow's nest, he reached for the telescope he'd taken with him from his cabin and snapped it open. The diamond spangles of stars in the night sky, coupled with the moon's silvery sheen, granted Weyard plenty enough light for people to see without their own. Instinct, instilled into him during those distant years of his childhood, guided him the moment he placed the telescope to his eye; it took him only a sparse handful of seconds to locate the eternal fog that shrouded the 'uncharted' Sea of Time. A pair of rust-coated rocks marked its entrance.

He swallowed, unable to stop himself. It was only a matter of time before they all found out the truth about him: the feud, his age, his name, the truth of it all. The truth that couldn't leave him alone for a single moment. Taking the telescope from his eye, Mariner stared at the pinprick of fog in the distance and waited patiently for the expected call. _I don't like it, but sometimes I have little choice but to accept the one true thing _he_ says._

The hissed, serpentine words snaked through his head: _It's all your fault._

Realising that the tangle of veins common in Ivan's throat had taken deep root inside his own, Mariner sighed at his stupidity. It might be true, but it always brought him so much more pain at remembering what he'd been made to witness.

_It's all your fault._

* * *

_Worry fear terror anger hatred rebellion dread pain pain __**pain PAIN**_

_Something flashed in front of his eyes, slashing at his face. The skin at his right temple was sliced through, sending blood cascading down the right side of his face. Someone shrieked words he couldn't hear over the pounding pain, someone else bellowed with raw, unchecked anger that was suddenly brought to a crashing halt and –_

_Looking at himself in a puddle left over from the rain, he held up some of his bangs and gazed at the mark that had cut him off from his peers and elders –_

_Unafraid of the lightning that danced in the sky, he picked his way back through the forest with a bundle of dry wood and kindling tucked protectively under one arm. It wouldn't be long before the fire burned out and the others would be left in the devouring dark, unable to do anything with the wood that could no longer burn. In the stinging rain, almost as numbing and painful as lightning might have been, he only caught the tiniest glimpse of the star that shot towards the woods, burning through the sky with its pure brightness and divine celestial light in a completely different way to how the Mars Clan had taken over the other Clans. The perfect glimmer he noticed whirled around in the velveteen backdrop of night embroidered with lightning, appliquéd with silky grey clouds and studded with stars._

_It was in the next clearing that he heard the crying. __Stopping for a moment, he listened again for the sound of a child's voice younger than his own and went to search for its source; if someone was in trouble, then he had to help them…no matter what…_

_When he saw what lay in the centre of the crater that had destroyed part of the forest, the bundle of wood under his arm almost immediately clattered to the ground as he skidded down the walls of the crater, similar to one of the pock-marks on the moon's face, and hurriedly picked his way across to the slightly raised middle of the crater. A bundle quite different to the one he'd been carrying lay there, the sound of a child's howl emanating from it. He couldn't help himself; he knelt down next to it and lifted it up, with some difficulty, gently folding back the edges of the strange material and watching for a while in amazement when a baby girl's face peeked out at him, her eyes innocently gazing into him…_

_He had –_

–_ lost her. He and Isaac crashed through the Venus sector, desperately searching for her in all the usual places and not finding her. Terror bit into him hungrily, and he thought for a moment that a monster had managed to successfully snap at his arm. What to do? Where could she have gone?_

_There was someone watching him from not far away, with a hint of glazed boredom touching his body wherever the person looked. Standing upright, he bit his lip and felt the familiar rush of frosty defiance and flaming anger zing through him. A Mars. And not just any Mars: the girl destined to become the Third Lady, when one hadn't existed in years. She didn't look to be much younger than him._

_Steeling his mind for the consequences but spurred on by desperation and his anger, he actually had the reckless nerve to go and speak to the girl as she sat there on the charred stump of a tree and watched the Venus Clan work. He dared to talk to her. She spoke back, in the way the Mars Clan did with the other Clans, but there was something in her eyes that told him far more than her words did. She was interested in what he was doing._

_It was probably because of that interest that he wasn't whipped for his rash actions._

_The hanging, eight years later. Yes. He thought he'd seen the young woman who'd read the declaration from the safety of the Lords and Ladies' platform before. She had to be the Third Lady, elevated to her post only a few months previously. He recognised the hair colour, the tame flames tied back into a stern ponytail. She'd changed from a girl with true humanity within into some sort of caged creature, emotionless and deadly. And even as she read through the last sentence and gave the order for the execution to commence, he couldn't help but pity her despite the irony of it all…a Venus pitying a Mars…_

_It had happened to his parents. But look at what happened to them._

_The scar on his right temple twinged._

* * *

_Another weird dream. Excellent. Just what she wanted when she was trying to sleep off the last memories of the horrifically gigantic ocean of paperwo__rk she'd somehow sailed through. So what was it going to be this time? The flying ship her brother had reported? The cold, barren wastes leading up to an iced tower that glittered like purest quartz crystals in winter moonlight? The weird yet beautiful and blissful sensation of someone touching – caressing – her body, of sweet lava coursing through her veins, of the freedom it helped her taste…_

…_eyes again. A pair of eyes…no…two pairs, incredibly similar, blinking as one pair and opening as the other. Suddenly there was a third pair as well, the colour slightly different, redder and more feminine, opening as the second pair closed. Nonetheless, something about the sextet of eyes was frighteningly familiar for Kay; the closer she squinted at them to discern the shadowed faces surrounding them, the deeper inside her the sensation planted its roots and blossomed inside her organs, the flowers dripping with nectar and dusted lightly with pollen she dealt with daily blooming in her mind and obscuring her vision. She'd have to find out another way, somehow._

_Recognition oozed into her when the red-brown eyes opened. She knew that colour. She knew it well, even though she hadn't seen it since her visit to the infirmary to chastise her brother.__ The colour was unique, belonging solely to one of Karst's inspectors. Jenna. So…one pair belonged to Jenna…_

_Focusing on the other pairs, Kay tried to discern what the similarities were between them. Both pairs were hauntingly familiar, one chestnut-brown and the oth__er the colour of dark oak beams. Residing in the irises and black abysses of pupils was that quality she'd noticed in that first strange dream, the one with that boy looking for his sister: the burning fire that –_

_Wait a minute, that pair she'd seen only a couple of weeks ago__, down in one of the cells. The prisoner had been too weak and injured to take the stairs up to her normal interrogation room, so she had gone down instead. _Stubborn as a mule_, she remembered. _He was one of the Seeker prisoners, wasn't he? So which one was he?_ Her mind tried to prevent her from delving deeper into the recesses of her memories, much to her annoyance. She wanted to know! She didn't give a damn if it removed her safety – she wasn't Lady Menardi's protégé for nothing!_

_She elbowed her way quickly past the guards to her mind's fortress. Her bare feet slammed almost painfully against the bare stone flags as she ran through the twisting corridors__ towards the door to her memories. Flinging the doors wide open, she stepped in and –_

_A name finally surfaced from the mire of thoughts: Jasper._

_So…Jenna was somehow linked to that slashed circle Venus man…but that was impossible. Jenna was a Mars Adept, for the gods' sakes. A valued and respected member of the community. She couldn't be connected to a Venus Adept. Not unless she was related to him by blood, and everyone knew that if anything like that happened the Venus would be executed and the Mars taken into hiding. The knowledge that Jenna and a slashed circle Venus Adept were linked perturbed Kay; she'd have to ask her brother about Jenna. Well, after all, they were practically an item even if both of them would completely reject the idea. Besides, a guard and an inspector? It would never be allowed. She completely outranked him._

_No matter how hard Kay searched, the only match she had for the third pair of eyes was that boy from eight years ago…no name, no nothing except that short glimpse of the Venus sector. She tried to go further, to find connections between the final pair and the previous two, but no matter what she did all she was able to see was invariably that ten-year-old's face framed with dark brown hair. If she tried to go any further, she might just fall into an even deeper, completely dreamless slumber…_

…_Kay fell…_

* * *

_Her mother had been sick for months now. Her coughs racked her body when they seized her; sometimes Jenna saw her spit blood into the sink and pretend that it hadn't happened. For three weeks now, the woman – only in her early thirties, but looking far older due to the dullness in her eyes and the grey strands that stood out against the red-brown of her hair – had been bedridden, unable to leave her room because of her illness. The doctor never came, even when Jenna went and begged him literally on her hands and knees to come and help her mother. All she ever got in reply was: "If she was a real Mars woman, she'd come for help herself instead of sending a child. How can she bear to show such weakness?"_

_Jenna had persisted, trudging out of the house in all weathers to go back to the sanctum and try again. Her pleas would only fall on deaf ears no matter what she did; the mother looked after the child, not the other way around. After each failed attempt she would make her way home, pretending not to cry from being ignored and from the scathing, unfriendly eyes that watched her from behind the safety of window glass. Other children that darted through the streets shrieking with glee and laughing at each other would simply act as if she wasn't there, or had camouflaged brilliantly with her background._

_One morning her mother wouldn't wake up._

_Jenna decided not to worry about it at first. _Mama's just tired_, she told herself as she ate her breakfast and washed up after herself. She was six, and knew exactly how to take care of herself. Waiting for another hour before checking in on her mother and still getting no response, Jenna finished dressing and headed out into the autumn morning. For a while she sat on a nearby damp bench and watched the twirling leaves, garbed in rich golds and imperial reds, as they were tossed this way and that along the wind._

_A duo of primly-dressed Mars women sauntered past, chattering gaily and fluttering their fingers at every little thing the other seemed to say. One of them glanced sidelong, her eyes hooking into Jenna and drawing a luscious titbit of gossip from the six-year-old's position. Her lacquered voice rose so the sombrely-clad girl could hear. "That slut must be gone by now. See, her little bastard child's all by herself again out here. The disgrace of it all."_

"_Did you know? Millicent, who lived nearby when that woman moved in, said she swore the woman turned to laudanum to get to sleep," her companion added conspiratorially, stealing a glance at Jenna. "Well, we all know that laudanum turns to morphine sooner or later." She shook her head in undisguised disgust, sticking her nose up higher into the air as she brushed past Jenna on the bench. "And eventually poppy brick."_

"_How horrid. Can't believe it took six years for the whore to die, though. Opium kills quickly – my brother's in the guards, and they've raided the dens before, driven out the scum that sell the poppy. She must have made herself ill on purpose to make her death look natural." The first woman __thrust a sprig of lavender underneath her nose and inhaled sharply to drive away any bad scents. "No honour at all. It's disgusting."_

_Jenna's temper was a thread, slender and often weak. The woman's words snapped the thread completely in two, and, blinded with rage, Jenna jumped off the bench and scrabbled in a flowerbed for a handful of stones. Some were smooth and even, like eggshells; a couple were jagged and sharp, determined to slash and tear at whatever they touched. Not caring what the consequences would be, Jenna stood up straight and flung one of the stones with terrifying accuracy straight at the two chattering bullfinches of women._

"_You leave my mama alone!" she yelled at them, hurling another stone and allowing her anger to dictate its flight towards the shocked ladies. "Leave her __**alone**__!"_

_The women stared at the child screaming defiance at them. The first turned to the second. "The fumes. From the opium. They must have got to the girl as well, the little wretch. Ugh, the way she behaves, you'd think she was from the Venus sector…"_

"_We all know she was spawned there. Not the slut's first child with that Venus either, I heard."_

"_Shouldn't be allowed."_

"_These stones – that child should be taken to bedlam for this!"_

_When she was satisfied the two gossips had fled and her throat protested sorely to her screaming any longer, the girl hurriedly stuffed the last few stones into her pockets and dashed back towards her home. Opened the door. Went into her mother's room, still dark and completely silent. Stood by her mother's cold, pallid face. Her voice only just whispered._

"_Mama?"_

_Afterwards, she sat on the step outside and let the withering leaves collect around her, oblivious to people staring at her when they strolled past and noticed a little Mars girl alone on an austere concrete slab. What could she do bar sit there…but nothing…there was nowhere for her to go. Nobody nearby would look after her. They wouldn't want the whelp of some lowlife Venus Adept crossing their perfectly welcoming thresholds._

_Hoarse sadness slid into her body through her wild eyes that refused tears. It seeped through her skin like rain through cloth: inevitable, unstoppable, clarifying. Elucidation was cruel and always sought out easy victims, and it shuddered through her while her shoulders began to shake from tension and pure unhappiness. __Blood welled up where she bit her lip too hard, and it mingled with the twin salty streams that cascaded down her face into her drawn-up knees and arms. And yet, although the material absorbed Jenna's unleashed misery, it was still touching her skin and reconnecting it back to her. She was trapped by her grief, barred into a tiny room with only a tiny window that brought no ray of hope – only a tiny sliver of moonlight, barely enough for her to see the opposite wall of her melancholy cell by._

"_Menardi, look over there. Some bastard's left a child out for the crows."_

"_Karst, must I remind you about your language in public?"_

"_Why should I give a damn, sister? Look at the girl! Look at all the people walking past, not caring if she lives or dies! She's another Mars girl, isn't she? What godsdamn right do those ignorant bastards have to leave a child crying?"_

"_Karst…although I agree with you, this is hardly the time for you to lose control…"_

_She heard footsteps stamping towards her, and peered up timidly through her hair. The woman before her was in her late teens, maybe early twenties, and she stood over Jenna for a while with her hands on her hips before actually talking. "You live here?" she demanded, nodding at the door. The wind snatched at her dark pink-red hair; it only made her even more imposing._

_Jenna nodded, wiping congealing blood from her face as she hurriedly stood up and dipped a shaking curtsey. "Yes, Milady…I'm…I'm just waiting for mama to wake up…"_

_Tears were rapidly carving channels for them in the flesh of her cheeks, obvious against the grimy film that coated them from days without a proper wash. She stood outside with the Second Lady and felt like nothing more than an empty, pathetic shell devoid of…well, anything. When Menardi re-emerged from the house looking grave, Jenna already knew what was going to be said. _Mama…mama, please don't leave me…mama…

* * *

_This light was bright, golden, exuding nothing but cheer. That light…was no light at all; a yawning chasm of darkness stretched before her. Unsure of what it meant, she waited at the crossroads and frowned. If she was more like them, she'd be able to understand the meaning – but she wasn't, and never really had been. She didn't like the way they insisted on protecting her with no thought for themselves, especially her brother. He was always with his mind on other people's welfare, and that was what had caught him in so many fights. With a shake of her head she cast away the memory of what had happened during _that_ time, not wanting it to return and weave its dark magic on her again._

When did that happen?_ she thought, staring with renewed perplexity at the dream-world. One of them was sitting in the light, smiling gladly enough to make the light filtering through the sky look dirty and severe. Frightened, she flicked her gaze towards the void and tried not to gasp with horror lest the dream broke. The other one was there, watching her sadly and occasionally glancing at the light area. _This can't be…no, it can't be! No! NO!

_She screamed all the harder, but nothing could reach either of them. And while she stared at the scene, her uselessness ramming into her at every opportunity it could take, she could do nothing but watch as the abyss gradually absorbed its victim, leaving no trace behind…not even that sad smile…while the one staying in the light was untouched and left there to survive…_

**NO!**


	8. Shade

Ah…with any luck, this chapter will be shorter. Sorry it took so long to update time, but I was flooded with homework (…three guesses as to which subject…) and had to survive a weekend with my insane friends playing the 'cello. Oh, and get my brace fixed.

Okey-doke, how many people have been wondering what happened to a certain Adept? Even Kraden's already been mentioned in the fic. Please, don't bombard me with accusations for screwing up the GS character relationships, because I warned you in chapter one this was going to be weird. Remember, this is set in an alternate universe – where anything could happen…

I'm really evil, aren't I?

And finally, a mesa (may-sa) is a flat-topped mountain.

* * *

Shade

Fog lolled on the deck, too lazy to dissipate itself into the clear sky above. When Mia stepped onto the deck she shuddered from the sudden chill that enveloped her, her mind flashing through her dream again in less than a second: the hungry cold biting at her flesh, the knowledge of her uselessness, the path she was destined to take. Clasping her hands together, Mia yanked the strands of her sense back into place, making the cloth of her consciousness whole again. _It was a long time ago, and _he's_ not coming back. Mariner promised._

"Oh! Mia, good morning!"

Startled by the voice that unexpectedly emerged from the nearly opaque mist, she span around rapidly, reaching for her staff blindly in the fog. Her hand connected with something's arm, and she bit back a frightened shriek, instead breathing shakily as she recognised the material. Well, she _had_ made clothes from it not that long ago. Any half-decent Angelical woman knew how to sew; sometimes it became a necessity to stitch wounds up with thread or gut.

Isaac's concerned face faded into view when she turned round, calmly this time, sighing with relief. "I didn't realise I was that frightening," he commented, grinning. "Heh, looks like I'll have to work on not being scary in fog. Although," he added as he looked around at their indiscernible surroundings, trying to pierce the thick, almost miasmic pale grey substance with his bright eyes, "this fog's kinda scary in itself…" For a soon-vanishing second, he thought he could see a patch of dark blue somewhere out in the mist-encrusted sea. Frowning, he filed the vanishing phenomenon neatly into an orderly section of his mind and returned his attention to the Mercury girl.

"Yes…you're right about that," she replied, trying not to let his cheer drop her defences. The minute she let anything slip or dropped her guard by accident, he was always immediately onto her, trying to get more information out of her about this or that. Quite how he was always able to disguise his nosiness with that innocent, docile charm was beyond her. "I had a strange dream last night about a cold place, so I just reacted without thinking." Adopting silence, she took several deep breaths to prevent further shuddering as another wave of fog noiselessly billowed over the bows and floated through the humid air towards them. In the midst of the thick vapour, the quick glance she made up at the thoughtful-looking Isaac went unnoticed.

"I…had a strange dream as well," Isaac replied, his expression changing from happy and meek to honest and sensible. "Made me think a lot when I woke up. Realised how lucky it was that he found Sheba. Otherwise…" He studied the fog intently for a few moments before shaking his head. "Let's just say…he'd be…even worse."

Pretending she understood whatever he was saying was probably safer than asking him outright and being directly stared at with such intense blueness she'd go dizzy. Unsure of what he was really going on about, Mia adjusted the ribbon in her ponytail, smiled kindly without thinking, and smoothly changed the puzzling subject. "Dreams are strange things. I don't know how this fog's able to be as cold as the snowdrift I dreamed of…and it's at least as thick, too. I'll go and get Ivan to fix up those lightning jars of his before we can't see anything."

Isaac seemed to try lighting up the deck with his cheerful smile, taking advantage of Felix's absence to be compliant. "Sure, that's a good idea. I'll be able to see you properly then!" Checking the clean yellow knot on his left shoulder, he strolled off whistling along the deck towards the helm, taking his everlasting sunshine with him. Mia watched him for a moment before going back inside to wake Ivan up, trying to ignore that the way he'd said those words sounded _different_.

By the time the Jupiter Adept had noticed the fog and was muttering darkly about getting wet and shrinking, Ivan was already concentrating his psynergy to a fine point and expertly filled several well-stoppered bottles and jars with bright, crackly fragments of lightning. Even when the purple haze of his powers dispersed into the air, the natural glow from the static electricity in his hands added quiet maturity to his face; it was enough for his apparent childish superstition about shrinking to be forgotten by his two onlookers. Standing up from his crouch, he held out a container of lightning in each hand. "Mia, try not to break it this time," he warned the healer when she took hers. "Trying to gather up the lightning afterwards was difficult."

"Okay!"

"Isaac, I didn't know you were called Mia." Methodically picking up the coloured, blown glass jars and bottles and sliding them into an alcove set into the mast, Ivan dusted snapping static and a breath of lilac dust off his hands as he turned back round to face the two Adepts. "I made the lightning more concentrated this time to get better light, so if it gets free there could be problems. So be careful with those." He selected a bottle of lightning for himself and held it up, swilling the dancing substance like a wine connoisseur checks their wineglass. Apparent satisfaction painted itself onto his face when a rogue spark made the glass ring, the starry sound resounding around the ship. Part of the bright flash that emerged from the glass lodged itself in his purple eyes. "That should get Mariner up."

While the three of them chattered and went around the ship hanging the lightning containers up in useful places, they managed to banish some of the all-consuming fog's effects. Up ahead, the twin red rocks came into view surrounded by even deeper mist, the swirls of inky-black seawater twirling daintily around them and occasionally splashing large droplets onto the rocks themselves. Catching sight of the way the water churned almost _angrily_ once it was past the rock duo, Mia swallowed apprehensively. She hoped that Mariner knew what he was doing.

Arms stretched above his head, Isaac yawned. "I'm awake properly now, which is more than can be said for the cats." The illuminating light glinted on his teeth when he smiled. "I'll be able to talk properly, too. Hey, Ivan, did you have any strange dreams last night?"

"Not really," Ivan replied carefully, remembering other far stranger dreams he'd had before. _That one with the destroyed buildings was probably the strangest._ A mental image of white, limestone-covered pillars collapsed at odd angles, swarmed by invasive, unknown plant growth and heavily disfigured by aeons of time, surrounded by unfamiliar terrain, blew in on the wind that often gusted through his visions. Visions…that was why he was Seer. "Why?"

"'Cos me and Mia both had strange dreams," Isaac promptly replied before seeing Mia's face. It was the one she'd used shortly before almost putting her foot through the deck a couple of weeks back. "Well, a lot of snow and a cold place are kinda strange, aren't they?"

"It wasn't that strange," Mia retorted huffily, inwardly feeling the numbness induced by her frozen prison returning, her mind starting to freeze, the way she'd been mysteriously found in the drift and taken from it. _How did Mariner know I was there?_ she thought, not noticing Ivan's sceptical expression or the way he lifted one of his small hands up, pointing two fingers at her.

"Mia, you still can't lie," the Jupiter Adept said when she finally did notice and tensed her shoulders. "Don't glare at me like that – you're the one who had the dream in the first place!" he pointed out when she glared at him and curled her fingers tightly around her lightning jar. "And if you throw that thing, you can catch the lightning later."

Her glare intensified; Isaac dropped his almost naïve persona and hurriedly got out of the way before the argument could fully get under way. Listening to the two voices shouting an amalgamation of well-thought-out points and general blatant insults at each other, the Venus Adept held up his little bottle of lightning and ambled through the heavy swathes of woollen fog towards the other end of the ship. However, as the argument came to an abrupt stop (following Mariner bellowing something crossly at the two Seekers) Isaac could still hear the sound of something besides seawater lapping at the ship's hull. It was faint and barely audible, but he thought he could hear someone's muffled crying; quietly, he crept closer towards the stern of the ship, listening for voices.

He was startled out of his position almost immediately by Felix's voice. "Isaac, stop trying to hide."

Chastised, he turned the corner and looked apologetic. "Sorry." He combed his fingers through his birds' nest hair, nodding awkwardly in the direction of his two friends. "Hey, are you okay, Sheba? What happened?"

"I've been failing to get that out of her for the last ten minutes," Felix replied sadly, softly looking down at Sheba. "I got up half an hour ago and she followed me, and then…" He shook his head. "She won't let go, and won't tell me why." Gently placing a hand on the back of his sister's head, he held Sheba closer to let her concerned tears be absorbed by his tunic; he didn't want to risk thinking of what would happen if the others knew she'd been crying. Although it would doubtlessly be nothing like the acidic, _fake_, concern other people had looked at the girl with back in the Venus sector, nonetheless it would be discomforting. For him, if not for anyone else. Just the sharp, vicious memory of it made him return to brambles for defending himself, his sister and his friend.

Somewhere out in the fog, the strange blue patch re-emerged and stared at the winged ship as it smoothly sliced through the dark water towards the pair of rocks.

Isaac watched his friends, Sheba still firmly clinging to her brother, distractedly toying with his scarf to pass the time. Seconds before vanishing into his own imaginary world he yanked his mind back into reality, blinking hard several times to dispel any risk of losing his concentration. _It's just 'cos normally I've got to ignore it. But I can't this time, in the middle of this fog, 'cos we don't know why Sheba's crying._ Spokes of thought clicked neatly into place with each other while he glossed through and over his options. _I'll just stay here for the time being._

"You're not going to say what's wrong," Felix stated, quietly breaking through the delicate glass of silence. The broken shards were still _tink_ing against the floor when he calmly pulled Sheba's arms away from him and held them at her sides; she looked up at him through her wet eyelashes, the wet curtain of tears in her eyes just held back. "So can you stop making us worry?"

Abruptly, she tore away from him and disappeared past Isaac, heading for the door to the lower decks. The sound of the decoratively-carved door swinging open and shut echoed hollowly through the fog, rebounding off the ancient, muddy-red rocks and the whirling water to shoot right back at the ship. While the sound of conversation restarted at the other end of the ship, neither of the two Venus Adepts moved from where they stood, both of them still gazing after Sheba. Even the bottled lightning seemed as subdued as them, no longer zinging around the glass but instead quietly fizzing, collected into a starlight-esque glow in the middle of the bottle, unusually timid and quiet for something as alive as lightning.

"I must be such a crap brother." Felix wouldn't meet his friend's eyes.

Isaac found a corner of his scarf and edged it towards his mouth. "Where's proof for that?" he mumbled around the yellow mouthful, looking up into the fog that now cocooned the entire ship in its web of finely-spun clouds. Too late he noticed the stalagmites threatening to burst out from beneath Felix's skin, and hurriedly took a step back to avoid being speared by his friend's reaction. He knew the coldness in that glance only too well after his dream.

"Right here." Felix tapped his right temple, dark eyes never leaving Isaac's face. "If that's not proof, then what is?"

"Felix, you weren't even two when that happened," Isaac replied, reaching for his common sense while still chewing the scarf. "It wasn't your fault that all of that happened. You're just looking at negatives _again_," he added, risking coming closer. The ship's smooth, almost noiseless movement through the enshrouded sea made more thick fog drift between the two Adepts; Isaac swallowed nervously and took another step forwards. "What's so great about negative stuff anyway?"

"Shut up, Isaac. A pessimist is never disappointed, and most of the time we end up with bad things happening to us." The dark brown silhouette turned away from Isaac, his mind occupied with the past. A reel of monochrome memories played in his head, with only his inner eyes seeing the images rapidly click past, most of them harsh and scarring. "How you can stand there and not react to what happens around you is just…sometimes it seriously pisses me off. And get rid of that bloody scarf!"

The material almost ripped when Isaac yanked it from his mouth and stuffed both of his hands behind his back. He dropped his pretence, letting his other nature emerge from its blue prison inside his eyes, sending ripples across the surface of his irises; inside he was saddened at having to use the second mentality. "It's not like you're responsible for everything that happens to her. I know you hate that you can't always help her – hell, I don't like it – but that doesn't mean you have to beat yourself up about it. Right?"

Silence.

Awkward again, Isaac scratched his head for ideas and held up the lightning bottle to see if he could read Felix's reaction. "I can understand your reasons, but it's still kinda weird to want to get hurt for something someone else did. It was bad enough trying to get you out of that slump when we were little…"

"Shut up and get lost."

Isaac did so.

* * *

Mariner slung the covered picture frame onto his back and exited the main ship again. He already knew what sort of things the others would be doing – breathing the hauntingly pure air, looking around in stunned fascination at the columns lining the way to the dock – and it should hopefully be enough to prevent Mia seeing the frame. Touching his fingers to the hilt of his sword, he tried not to notice the renewed glittering sheen the dull aquamarines had acquired; it only made him remember more about what had happened, and –

His vision was cloudy despite the skyscape's clearness, and a needle of pain shot up into his head. _The nearer I get…the worse it becomes. I should have remembered._ This time it was a cluster of cactus spines piercing through his skull and impaling his mind. He twitched from the dull pain, inwardly trying to push away the sudden nausea attempting to suffocate him. So, even thinking about memories hurt him now. It was probably because of the man in the picture frame; he'd been shooting murky intent and twisting shadows towards Mariner ever since he'd told the others they had other things to take care of before returning to Angara. _At least once he's released he won't be able to get at us until he completes his task. By then…_ Swallowing, Mariner ran his fingers over the scarlet fabric, familiarising himself with the knot again so he'd be able to undo it once…

Blood. There was blood on his fingers. Momentarily freezing, he stared at his wrist and mentally cursed. Of course. He should have known that. He watched for several long moments at the material, now coated with his blood, as it tightened itself even further around his wrist and the edges slit into his skin.

_Dear me, Mariner…it appears you still haven't been able to fully suppress my powers close to your precious home. _Silken tones that were only received by his mind chuckled. _You are still Mariner, correct? I can never be certain for how long you keep one name without arousing suspicions._

He responded in turn. _I hardly see how it's anything to do with you. You're the one concerned with escaping from the seal, not me. Why don't you just leave my business out of yours – unless you want me to destroy the picture right here and be done with you?_ Grim satisfaction was sinking into him; the threat of destroying the picture was always enough to silence the suave voice that emanated from the frame when he was at home.

As the six Adepts made their way away from the dock and up towards the surface of the island, he strayed to the back of the line to avoid anyone noticing him casting healing psynergy on his wrist to stop the bleeding. He didn't want blood loss to cruelly trick him into dropping his guard when he was near the spring; even from here, almost a mile from the accursed 'holy' water, he could hear its demanding call invisibly bubbling through the perfectly-still air towards him. He couldn't let it win him over when the effects of it had only recently worn off, and he had to be careful that the others weren't seduced by the rich royal-blue waters. Mia, pure Imilian, wouldn't survive Lemurian spring water, and it would probably have other adverse effects on the two Jupiter children. He'd already made the two Venus boys wear gloves, which would keep them safe for a while…for long enough…

Pearly white pillars patched with stormy grey lichens rose up from the refreshing greenery, radiating grandeur frighteningly akin to that of the Mars Clan's. As Mariner glanced down at the worn rocks that were carved into pathways and stairs, he forced the distant memories' violence further back into the deeper recesses of his mind. He glanced up at the other five Adepts, all clambering the stairs with youthful agility, and felt a smile almost unnoticeably pulling at one side of his mouth. How long had it been since children that young had played in the streets, happy and able to bring happiness to the elder Lemurians?

Another violent stab of memory pain attacked him, and he almost lost his balance on the stairs.

Higher up, Sheba had already reached the top of the cliff-face stairs and was taking in her surroundings. She felt thousands of tiny knots of fear and intrigue tighten inside her as she saw more and more of the built-up mesa. The blocky buildings had fallen into complete disrepair, so fragments of ancient brick occasionally tumbled from their age-old positions and smashed, like droplets of rainwater, into the floor. Unknown plants grew in profusion – rich, earthy green leaves, strands of strange ivy, pale greeny-blue lilies – but it looked like they were conquering the land for themselves. Even when she concentrated on listening, there weren't any sounds of life. The whole place…trapped inside a sea of fog, sheared off from the outside world…all of it was empty.

_A dead city?_

Nothing. There was nothing left of the society…

"You okay?" Isaac tapped her gently on the shoulder. "You didn't look so great earlier…you weren't angry with us, were you?" He was relieved to see her look up at him, smiling and shaking her head mutely. "Good. Now Felix can stop being pessimistic and enjoy himself for once. Kinda strange place, isn't it?" He took a few steps closer to the bluish-grey buildings, head turning this way and that to cast happy rays across the fading stones. "But…where is everyone?"

"Try the cemetery sometime," Felix muttered, glancing at the neat rows of eroding, pink-veined marble headstones a little distance from the main town. "This place is dead." By the headstones, he noticed fluttering butterflies gleaming in the weak light of the pale topaz sun. One of the insects, an intricate gold and red tracery spilling over its wings, settled on the welcoming petals of a lily and only left once completely dusted with the bright orange dye from the pollen. "Nothing except insects."

Ivan helped Mia up onto the mesa and got to his feet. Severe light filled his purple eyes as he surveyed the crumbling city, his throat painful from the mass of blood vessels stopping him from breathing out. _But…this is a place from one of my visions. Why are we here?_ Unsure, he turned away from the eerie city and looked back down over the cliff stairs for Mariner. _Normally he tells us what we're going to before we set out. This must have something to do with what the Seekers are looking for. It's not just to sate curiosity about something._ He peered even further over the edge; Mariner was nowhere to be seen.

"Is something wrong?" Mia asked, quietly concerned. "Did Mariner go back to the ship?"

"I don't think so. We should probably get a move on and try to work out what we're meant to do here, not just stand around admiring the scenery. If it's normal to admire this sort of scenery." He glanced back over the precipice, watching for the flash of turquoise-blue scaling the steep stairs. "Mariner?"

To his relief, there was a muffled reply. "Ivan, the five of you have to head towards the palace on the peak. There are probably monsters around in the palace, so be careful. Make sure you get to the lowest levels – somewhere around there is a room with picture frames in it. Find one that's got silver and gold inlay on it, and bring it back."

"What about you?" Ivan replied. It wasn't normal for Mariner to come if he wasn't going to help out. "Mariner?"

"I have something else to deal with in the city." The Mercury Adept paused for a moment in the rocky alcove a few metres below the Jupiter boy, considering how to phrase his warning. "Ivan. To reach the palace you'll have to pass by a spring of water. Whatever you do, _don't drink from it_. It'll only bring you pain." Another pause, this one shorter and more urgent than the first. "And try not to panic if something happens to the others once you're in the palace. Try to stick together. That frame's going to be important sooner or later."

A fistful of minutes slipped by, and when Mariner was certain the others had moved on he left his hiding-place to reach to top of the mesa. The sound of his footsteps, alone on the stone pathways, was unnervingly loud. He didn't like it, but there wasn't any reason to stop walking. Out here, no Mars had ever penetrated the fogbound Sea of Time and found the hidden city; if they had, all they would have found would be collapsing buildings, a full cemetery (he shuddered at the memory), and a spring of water that granted something considered precious despite the actual harsh truth behind it. The only enemy out here was trapped in the heavy picture frame slung across his back. But…he was still…frightened…

It took twenty minutes to reach the spring. Even from several feet away, he could feel it trying to draw him towards it in the hope he'd take the water again and restore what little was left of the city. He didn't want to. He'd spent too many years outside the fog-drenched sea, watching hundreds try to amend what effectively had been caused by him, and the prospect of staying alive for innumerable years to come now seemed sickening. Too many of his old companions had died from natural deaths, while he alone lived on, barely aging. It had been years since he'd felt his body physically altering from age; now, just when the effects of a childhood spent drinking from the spring were wearing off and he was more similar to normal people, he _had_ to return…

With the covered frame propped up against the large stone basin, Mariner traced his fingers along a series of meandering carvings cut into the marble-work. His left index finger followed the shape of a little creature on the far right of the basin's edge, bitterness collecting like icemelt at the centre of his psynergetic core as he braced his right hand against the stone and murmured the name of a spell. When nothing happened, he sighed and repeated himself, louder. "Douse."

Water trickled from the sky, fuelled by his psynergy, and carefully filled the carved outline of the creature. Quickly, Mariner snatched his hands away from the stone and waited, yellow eyes never leaving the water-filled carving, while the summoning took place. _Only one left. He's absorbed three since I sealed him eight years ago. At this rate he'll be able to go for the other elementals too._ Thankful it wasn't honest remembering, Mariner nullified any pain his mind endured as he watched the water rise softly into the air, glimmering gently in the weak sunlight; it would only be a little time until the small animal was released.

Once the liquid hardened into its true form, the creature immediately hopped onto Mariner's shoulder so it was hidden by the fading blue and white folds of his headdress. A succession of quiet, rippling noises came from it, sounding questioning and a little afraid. From its spot beneath Mariner's left ear, the elemental spirit cocked its head to one side and listened for the sailor's answer.

"I'm sorry, Shade." He reached up and prised the spirit from his shoulder, holding it in the palm of his hand and watching it as evenly as he could. "I should have come back sooner to release you from the stone. You're the only one left from Mercury, now." He listened to the creature's bubbling reply, melancholy and alone. "No. I said I would keep her safe. She knows nothing of the feud at any rate, and I doubt she would want it to continue if she knew about it." The stream of rippling answers washed through his mind. "That's right. I won't let him get you. Besides which, you're the one who can keep him out – or in, as the case may be. He should have taken you long ago." Setting the elemental on the ground, he nodded at it solemnly as he picked up the picture frame and held it out over the basin. "Shade, set up your shield."

Flicking its purple-pink tail, almost in the shape of a lobster claw, the creature closed the blindingly yellow spheres that passed for its eyes and appeared to concentrate, the air around it rippling with aqua rings that shot towards the spring and surrounded it, a hazy turquoise mist quickly filling the gaps between the different wavy rings. Almost relaxing into its usage of power, the creature calmly reopened its eyes and watched as Mariner yanked the cloth cover from the gilt frame and dropping the picture into the water. The creature glimpsed the way in which the minute aquamarines on the hilt of Mariner's sword flashed angrily, blazing from the blade's memories of how it had been used through the generations.

Inside the impenetrable aquatic barrier, the Mercury Adept folded his arms and suspiciously stared at the surface of the spring water, his patience already beginning to wear thin. The man in the picture frame was always able to find new methods of infuriating him every time he escaped from the sealing. Last time he'd gone for what had been the most distressing option – attacking another member of his own Clan – but now he could only resort to…

"It appears that you never do change, Mariner. Ever the amateur."

…_damn. If anything I just get closer to losing my temper when he insults me._

"Still relying on that little thing? Really, I expected your power to have grown enough to face me alone by the time I was freed another time." Mariner could sense the malevolent smile directed at the back of his neck. "My my…then again, you're still hanging around with useless children, aren't you? Although, only two Venus is an improvement on that time. But really, the little Jupiters…and Mia? What do you think they can do?"

"More than you'd think." He glared over his shoulder at the apparition standing close to the watery curtain. "It's not like you ever tried to get along with others – if you couldn't use them, you deserted them."

The man laughed, making the water wall shudder with undisguisable apprehension. Mariner pretended to ignore how the earth beneath his feet trembled when the newcomer stepped towards him, hair and clothes _swish_ing as he moved. "Still bitter? And here I was, thinking it was more your fault than anyone else's that this eternal place was destroyed." The man drummed his fingers against the stone basin, dipping his spare hand into the bright, transparent liquid and watching the water trickle out from between his fingers with a bored, uncaring look. "I expect too much of you. Not even a reaction –" He glanced down at his other hand, now encased in pale ice and unable to move from its position. "Ah…"

Mariner fished in an inside pocket and retrieved a rectangle of rough, grainy paper sealed with red wax, the sealant almost blossoming with clear-cut ruby anger as the letter was brandished towards the restrained man. "I've told you before. Get rid of the attitude before I'm forced to destroy the picture itself. I have no intention of fighting you here, not when this is an intentional release. I suggest you read the letter and leave to do as it says."

"Tsk. I see you still have that unusual temperament for one of the immortal people. You are aware that it may be your downfall?" Dropping his eyes to the letter, the man opened it with his one free hand and scanned through the Revealer's letter, one eyebrow rising in scorn as he glanced up at Mariner. "Dear me…some sort of errand boy, are you? Fine." Ice slid into water, the liquid spilling over the man's arm as he freed it from the ice block with a quick tug. "I'll go. But after my 'task' is done, the hunt will resume." Swiftly drawing himself to his full height, psynergetic mist surrounded him momentarily; once it was gone, so had he.

His anger dispersing slowly into the paving slabs, Mariner nodded another time in Shade's direction and watched, bubbles of refined annoyance and sharply unfocused memories rising upwards from his core, as the shield withdrew into the little creature. Oppressive silence ricocheted through the dead city as he let Shade hop back onto his shoulder and began to head back towards the edge of the mesa to wait for the others. Under his skin, he could feel the convection current for his emotions carrying his cooling temperament back towards the placid centre of his mind.

It was only a matter of time before the others returned, Mia pale and ghost-like. Mariner didn't even need to look at her to know she'd worked out what had happened. A little later, back on the ship, he made certain she heard him out. "I gave you my word that I wouldn't let him cause you any more trouble. I don't intend to let him."

Yet no matter how strong the words sounded, within he was more frightened of the man after his blood that she could ever be.


	9. Investigation

Hahaha…in retrospect, that last chapter was one of the shorter ones…and I need to work on paragraph variation again. Whoops.

But whatever. After a chapter entirely devoted to the Seeker protagonists, it's time to take a look at life on the other side of the board: we return to the Mars citadel in Angara, where they're starting to get ready for the celebration of the end of the Venus Uprising. Oh, and there's quite a bit of shipping in this chapter. Of two kinds. (disappears whistling into next room to type up next chapter)

Oh…right. The 'chiquotte' was a particularly cruel kind of whip made from hippopotamus hide used by the British Empire in Africa. I won't go into details, 'cos it's a touch gruesome.

And by the way… if the Venus Uprising is the Peasants' Revolt (in England) then it's kind of obvious why a Mercury Adept was involved. The leader of the Revolt was called 'Wat Tyler'… 'Wat' being short for 'Walter'…which can be pronounced similarly to 'water' (if you've got a specific kind of English accent, anyway). So, there you go. Heck, I've really screwed up English history for this fic, haven't I?

* * *

Investigation

Through the stained glass window, the autumnal sunlight sent kaleidoscopic whirls of colour across the floor. Vivid crimson was side-by-side with young green; blue was brightened by soft yellow; the deep lavender circle in the centre of the windowpane gave the display a twilight core to spiral out from, its bright tendrils spreading across the bare floor in a mystical dance of pure, glassy beauty.

It was wasted on the room's occupants. Although the coloured light would sometimes drench them or mock their difficult fluid movements with its perfect positioning and flexibility, neither of them took any notice of it. They switched from one stance to another with a cobra's grace at high speed, blocking hits with restrained ease and smoothly lashing out with their own attacks coming from unexpected angles and places. Naturally there were differences between the two of them; while miniature beads of sweat strung themselves together beneath the sticky strands of hair covering one forehead after fifteen minutes, the other appeared unaffected by the work – if anything, she was just beginning to speed up her movements. With a refined, serene movement, she turned on the balls of her bare feet and unconcernedly slammed the palm of her hand into her opponent before relaxing her stance into normal standing position.

Kay rubbed the back of her head where it had connected painfully with the back of a cabinet. She struggled back to her feet, her muscles almost audibly protesting, gritting her teeth together with diamond-hard determination. _This much control…ugh. It's more difficult than anything I've done before, and I thought I was in pretty good shape._ Emeralds glittered in her eye sockets as her body adjusted to a new stance, her weight firmly balanced between her legs with her arms in a protective position – one shielding her head, the other covering for her torso and lower body.

Her opponent disappeared with speed, throwing her back off her feet and onto the floor again. The girl snapped back into standing, clutching her hands and bowing with terrified respect. "Oh! My lady, a thousand apologies! I am indeed very sorry for causing you harm!"

The Third Lady accepted the proffered hand and stood up again, one hand on her smarting lower back. Taking the full brunt of the fall there had been a mistake, and it was bound to take a couple of hours for the pain to ebb away. Brushing her sweaty bangs behind her ears, she managed a small bow to the girl from Xian. "Accepted, Feizhi. Now go and run me a bath – I'm not going to see my subordinates covered in sweat." She waved the maid away briskly and stood for a while in the middle of the room, panting from exhaustion.

It took three minutes to move the mahogany table back into the centre of the room by herself, and after the effort of the combat training it conspired to make her collapse onto the cushions on the velvet-covered sofa. The stained-glass light washed over her calmingly, her body slowly relaxing into the plain cushions. In her opinion, the intricate and expensive embroidery prized by so many was way too much hassle to pay for.

"Ugh." Resting the back of one hand against her forehead, she exhaled. "You'd think I'd be used to it by now, but _no_…"

"Used to what precisely, Lady Kay? You look a little worn out."

Recognition slapped her when Kay glanced up and noticed the unexpected visitor leaning on the doorframe. Swinging her legs off the cushions, she stood up, muscles still vehemently arguing with her mind about moving, and nodded respectfully in the blonde woman's direction. "Lady Menardi." Her hand swept round towards the sofa, and she smiled when her old teacher was only too glad to accept. "This is…unexpected, to say the least, Lady Menardi."

"Oh, drop the hostess act, Kay. This is completely unofficial." The First Lady tugged the ruby-studded hair band from her mass of blonde waves and reached into her robes for a midnight-black lacquered cigarette holder. She fixed a white cylinder in with expert ease, and used her psynergy to light it. "It's been a while since we've had a real conversation," she said, blowing a cloud of curling grey smoke into the air.

Kay nodded, genteelly wafting the smoke aside with her hand. "Yes. Not since my elevation, I think." Her tongue clucked against her teeth. "I've been very busy with sorting out the other interrogators besides stopping my brother from disgracing himself any further."

"Tsk. He does that too well. He's an embarrassment to the Clan. Sometimes I can't believe he's your younger brother." Another puff of smoke reclined in the air for a few calming minutes before dispersing silently. For a moment, Menardi twirled the black holder between her fingers and glanced at Kay. "Anything new? I heard from the guards that you got your hands on some new toys."

The younger woman let out a short bark of laughter, sitting down next to Menardi. "You mean those Seekers sent from Hesperia? Toys is a good description of them." Her tongue ran over her painted lips as if she still tasted the memory. "I only got the leader. Cunning for someone of her age. But not cunning enough to avoid giving anything away. We gleaned quite a bit from them. Should hold well with Karst and Saturos at the next meeting."

"Excellent." Lips pursed, the First Lady crossed her legs and trailed her fingernails across her satin skirts. "Kay, now I think about it, you've never interrogated anyone close to your own age, have you? That really ought to be corrected." More smoke drifted from her mouth into the rays of sunlight streaming through the decorative window, and she ran her free hand through her blonde locks casually. "Then again, the most difficult prisoners are always younger or older. So you get them. Hm. Capturing those three Venus brats who escaped a month or so back would have cured you of that…"

Eyes. _The third brown pair of eyes from that recurring dream opened when she blinked, revealing her own reflection in the dark irises, the pupil widening as the eyes got closer instead of the further away she wanted them to be…to see whose face they belonged to. Blinking a second time, only half-registering what the First Lady said, Kay felt heat rise in her cheeks and fought to control the poppies opening on her cheeks. Poppies, the flowers which only grew when the land was disturbed…_

"…avoid certain things, naturally. Kay? You're aware of what happens when an unsuitable match is made, correct?" Menardi was completely oblivious to how her previous protégé hadn't heard a word of the conversation for the past few minutes. When she looked at the quiet Mars Adept, Kay quickly nodded in reply to avoid any reprimands. Apparently satisfied, Menardi continued, wafting her cigarette holder in the air to emphasise certain points. "Don't worry. We heard recently that some acceptable suitors from Gondowan and Osenia have appeared. There won't be anything farcical."

_Wh-what? Hang on, how did she get onto marriage? What? Who? Why? Ugh, I'd better get rid of this topic fast, or she'll start ranting about things like she used to._ "That's…good," she replied carefully, selecting words at random from her extended vocabulary and slotting them into sentences. "I…wouldn't want there to be any scandal. Nothing like what's going on with my brother and that inspector." _WHAT? Where did _that_ come from?_ Her body was stubbornly rebelling with what her mind wanted!

She winced inside when she saw Menardi's lip curl with disapproval, the coils of silky smoke floating from her mouth now appearing sinister and dangerous. "The whole palace talks about that behind their backs. It's a disgrace to the system, Kay, a complete disgrace! To think the little boy and half-Venus girl I introduced so she wouldn't be alone could get so close." Volcanic cinder cones emerged over the First Lady's cheeks, the angry spots spewing furious lava across her face. "If their friendship became anything more than that – dear Gods, they'd be stripped of their ranks immediately. I'd see to it."

"Of course." _Oh, crap._

"Of course." An irate Menardi stomped to her feet and strode towards the window, trailing wisps of smoke. She glared at the view. "Disgusting. Marriage outside of your rank is unacceptable. Jenna should know that. If she was fool enough to actually…besides what other secrets she has, it would completely ruin her." Exhaling, the fuming anger gradually faded from her face and she turned her never-divided attention back to Kay. "Thankfully there won't be anything like that for you. Unless you've managed to somehow conceal an affair you've had, which I highly doubt." This smile was taunting, deliberately chosen to fluster the Third Lady. "Let's think…where would you hide a boyfriend? A lover?"

Kay felt her circlet slip further down her forehead when her frown intensified towards her mentor. "Milady. What need have I ever had for something like that? None. Such queries are completely unnecessary." She hurriedly pushed the circlet back to its correct position, hmphing with clear disapproval and turning her gaze to the colours on the floor that were gradually getting closer to her.

Muted but still audible laughter filled the room, overtaking every aspect of it. Kay's plants shuddered and tried to shy away from the dark chuckling, terrified by the malicious aspect to it, the blatant spite coated with syrupy lies and an overly sweet shell; even the furniture seemed to be afraid. Swallowing, Kay distractedly glanced at the floor. The colours flickering across it were moving jerkily, unnerved by the Mars woman's presence.

"I don't doubt you, Kay. I'm worrying _for_ you," Menardi said, moving away from the window and leaning against the mirror-bright polished table. Sighing, the woman picked up an empty china dish from the surface and stubbed the cigarette out, her finger trailing through the ash left behind and drawing patterns in the smouldering substance. "You…should be aware that your job involves certain risks. Considering that I taught you for…thirteen years? That's about right. You definitely understand the dangers of being chief interrogator."

"I wouldn't have this post if I didn't, Milady." Kay reclined further back against the cushions, allowing her muscles to relax again and settle into their normal state. "Half the people I've interrogated turned violent more than once."

Shaking her head, the First Lady replaced the ruby hair band in her hair and stalked across the room, opening the door quietly and pausing. "Kay…if you ever had interrogated someone of your own age, you'd know what I mean. And I mean something a little different to what you appear to have in mind." Her red boots clicked against the spiral of stone stairs leading out of Kay's tower rooms, the cold walls echoing the chillingly resonant sound for minutes after she'd reached the bottom and set off along the tapestry-laden corridors.

Feizhi bustled in, a thunder-grey towel folded neatly in her arms. She bobbed a neat curtsey to her mistress. "My lady, your bath has been prepared." As Kay walked past her into the bedroom, the maid noticed the cigarette ash on the china plate and frowned with concern. "Um…my lady?" she whispered, while Kay was ineffectively fumbling with the silk laces on her bodice and cursing quietly. "If my lady wishes, I am able to buy tobacco…"

In reply, the Third Lady shook her head and finally pulled off the dratted bodice, dumping it on the carpet and breathing outwards with relief. "Feizhi, go away," she snapped irritably; she'd worked out what Menardi had implied. Tossing the gold circlet onto her pillow uncaringly, Kay slid out of her maroon skirts and padded towards the bathroom, the route directly through her miniature jungle soothing her annoyance to some degree with the purity of the delicate scents exuded by the plants and absorbed by her skin.

_Ha,_ Kay thought as she lowered herself into the hot, bubble-filled water. For a moment she lay submerged by the aromatic water, considering the horrific possibilities that would occur if what the First Lady suggested _could_ be true. Surfacing, she scraped handfuls of glittery foam from her hair and blew on it, sending tiny bubbles into the air to be picked up and twirled around by the soft autumn breeze blowing through the arched window. Her eyes watched the delicate movements, trying to lose her mind to the simplicity and ease of the imaginary, myths and magic, the sheer lack of reality she wanted to impose upon herself to escape from –

_What rubbish am I thinking? I don't want to escape from anywhere. As long as I have myself, and my brother to keep me sane, and my loyalty to the Empire, I shouldn't want to have anything. I definitely don't need what Menardi suggested._ At the back of her mind, something from earlier clicked into place, sending bell-like peals around Kay's head. _Hang on a minute…half-Venus? Jenna? But…but then…_

While her mind's wide eye resumed showing her that recurring dream and she tore through her castle of memory towards possibilities regarding to whom the third pair of eyes belonged, she didn't notice the slightly asymmetrical shape the suds around her formed.

* * *

Helmet. Sword. Breastplate. Chainmail. That godsdamn pair of dumb-looking red boots. Okay. She'd finally got all that stuff off her body and onto the racks for cleaning later; she'd sit down and write up her report for the week, and then shower off all the grime caught in her sweat. Then she'd try to work out how to put off cleaning her armour. Right. Okay. She could do this. That last job out into the Mercury sector hadn't been too bad, so with any luck it wouldn't take long to finish writing her report. Well…the job hadn't been bad, but the situation had been.

Jenna stuffed her feet into her soft leather boots and wearily rubbed her temples, tiredness brimming to overflow inside her. A month had passed since the three Venus Clan members had disappeared, and if anything it had been her hardest one as an inspector so far. In the past couple of weeks preparations for the mid-October celebrations had exploded into chaos, both in the palace and out in the other parts of the citadel; the Mercury sector especially had been busy, trying to organise the rebuilding of several storehouses as well as carry on with preparations. Not only that, but now visits made by the Second Lady's squad to the Venus sector were becoming more frequent and increasingly difficult to cope with. Adding to that how the Third Lady had been given several Seekers from Hesperia…

Sighing, she stood up and stretched, her yawn filling the room and probably drifting out into the inspectors' corridor as well. _Right. Back to work. This'll be easy compared to that one I had to finish when I got out of the infirmary._ The cushion on her chair was only so much comfort after walking around the Mercury sector all day, tired and cross, but it didn't matter. Report. Write report. Her fingers wrapped around the end of a goose-feather shaft, and she neatly trimmed the nib with a tiny, fairly decorative knife before reaching for the clay inkpot. If anything it wasn't much disappointment for her when she realised there wasn't any ink in it. It gave her a perfectly feasible excuse to consider the little additions to her knowledge of the Seekers.

_So. Working backwards from today, there have been approximately four sightings of possible Seekers in the Citadel reported to the palace. Meaning there have probably been at least seven, probably about nine or ten actual visits from the Seekers. Sheesh, why didn't I think of asking Garet for the exact number? He'd be bound to know._ Irritated by her foolishness and lack of proper memory, Jenna hauled open her cupboard and reached for her spare ink. She shook her head and headed back towards her small oak desk. Once the ink was set down she immediately turned her mind back to what she knew. _After my leg broke there wasn't any activity for a couple of weeks…and then all of a sudden there's unusual graffiti on the citadel walls. As far as I know that's still ongoing, but now there's been a couple of raids in the Mercury and Jupiter sectors. Before that…the ship. The flying ship, and where it was hidden._

What her pen quietly muttered and scratched onto the thick sheet of paper was completely different to her thoughts. It wasn't as if anyone could find out what she was thinking anyway, so detaching her conscious mind from the rest of her barely affected her; the pen was controlled completely by her subconscious mind remembering what had happened. By this time, her body had filled about half of the creamy page with neat, looping handwriting and was preparing to indent her next paragraph.

_Hm. And prior to that, my first solo inspection into the Venus sector. One of those three knew how to read, or had more brains than they let on. Or both. 'Cos otherwise, how would they have known to get out of there? From other inspectors' reports and the Archives, I know there's nobody who taught any Venus Clan kids to read from the citadel. They must have had outside help. Seekers. _Her pen reached for the inkpot again and spent some time dipping in and out of the blue-black ink, made from natural gum and wasp galls, while she kept her mind firmly on its new course. _I guess it all leads back to that hanging, doesn't it? And I know nothing from before that. I ought to find out what those three Venus adults were doing to get themselves caught._

She couldn't concentrate when her mind returned from muted reverie. For a while she stared at what she'd written, hoping to discern what her body had been trying to write next. To her utmost annoyance, she'd returned bang in the middle of a sentence. Up until that point, it was a perfect smooth line of excellent handwriting, no smudges or inkblots choking the page to destitute illegibility; suddenly, right at the end of the line, an abrupt finish to a word. Nothing else was coming. _Bloody hell!_

She pushed away from her desk and stomped to her feet, glaring at the paper with venom. Anger fuelled her; she tossed aside the pen and concentrated on controlling the relentless emotion. It wasn't right for a Mars to show such emotions whenever. Such actions had to be kept under control. That was the way it was. The way it had to be. Especially for her, only being half-Mars and all. Protocol dictated the way she should live to be redeemed from the past that kept trying to haunt her, the poltergeist dreams that insisted on returning occasionally to remind her of what she'd been liberated from. Returning to that life was – impossible, after she'd come so far. Unthinkable. Something that shouldn't be thought of lightly. She had to finish the report to stay in for longer. Leaving the palace would –

_Come off it. Karst's not about to throw me out on the ear because of a report. All she's done is sing my praises since my leg mended and I finished up a couple of solos perfectly. Maybe I really do work better by myself, without any of my idiotic friends around to mess up for me._ Thinking that only made her feel a little guilty for the insult. Some of them were a little stupid, but saying that about her best friend was…_ Truthful. But a bit cruel. Whatever._

Her inability to concentrate only antagonised and aggravated her irritation. Digging her fingernails into the flesh of her palms, she walked out of her room and along the corridor, as encrusted with portraits of important people to the Mars Clan as a tree in the forest was infested with insects. She batted away the greetings of other inspectors heading for their rooms, speeding up her pace a little as she reached the end of the long, austere corridor. Touching her fingers to the complex knots in the simple birch door leading away from the rest of the general hubbub inside the main passages, Jenna entered the servants' corridor and expertly peeled her eyes for any eccentricities. At this time of day – late afternoon, gradually shading into autumnal, blackberry-coloured twilight – it was rarely difficult to find Garet.

Jackpot, almost immediately. Even amongst his fellow guards, Garet and his 'little idiosyncrasies' stood out as an unexpected splash of colour against an otherwise tedious grey-white, far-too-starched cast of men. Firstly, he was quite a bit taller than most of them and his irregular ginger hair only made him look even taller. Second, he was actually smiling as he listened to the otherwise fairly dreary conversation, probably recalling something he'd overheard recently. Thirdly, the fact that he kept forgetting how to address people correctly…gods, that was a habit that annoyed Jenna. She had to stick to protocol all the time. And remind him about it constantly, as well.

"Garet. May I have a word with you?"

He grinned at her unconsciously, ignorant of the warning look she gave him. "Hi, Jenna." The daggers glared at him forced him into suddenly remembering into his correct manners. Swallowing nervously, he made a discreet bow to Jenna. "Sorry. I mean, good evening, Miss."

If they'd been alone it would have been very different. But as there were others present, and more to the point _servants_ nearby, Jenna glued herself to the sheer correctness of the rigid protocol and refused to unstick from it. "I see. Eavesdropping again? How many times must I remind you to drop that bad habit?"

"Probably a few mo – sorry, Miss. I'm afraid I haven't counted." Garet could never find glue strong enough to adhere himself to the rules. "Uh…why d'you want to talk to me?"

"Garet. Try to behave like any normal Mars Adept, just for once in your life, and do as your superiors tell you." _That_ smarted. She could see the pain and disgrace flicker in his face. Fixing a pleasant smile to her lips, Jenna nodded at Garet's companions. "Good evening, gentlemen." While she led the way back along the corridors, she was only too aware of the muttering from nearby about the way that she and Garet were _very_ close…but _of course_ it wouldn't be allowed. _She_ was an inspector, and a damn good one at that…

She made a rude gesture at the door after she'd closed it _so_ calmly. "Bastards! Sheesh, what right do they have to talk like that about people? They bloody well know we're friends, and it's always been like that! Godsdamn idiotic no-good snivelling – bastards!" Her teeth gritted, she span around wildly and frowned at Garet, sighing heavily. "I need a new profanity to describe them."

He grinned weakly. "You'd better cool off too, or they'll be after your blood when you yell too loudly." Looking around the compact, decently comfortable room, his eye irretrievably snagged on Jenna's unfinished report and he reached for it, expecting at least a severe lashing with her chiquotte tongue. By the time he'd finished reading through the report, he was worried; Jenna was normally…incredibly protective of her writing… "Hey, is somethin' up? I thought you were acting kinda weird today."

"Try to articulate properly!" she rapped in reply, before remembering where they were. "Sorry. That was just…reflex action."

"Doesn't matter," he said almost dismissively. "It's not like you normally have to remind guards anyway. So…what's up? You don't normally leave a report unfinished like this. Or come and find me. Did something bad happen, or something?"

He noticed her deep intake of breath. "I want to be precise, but I can't be. This report practically relies on knowledge of what other Seeker activity's occurred recently, and I only have sketchy details. But you…" She twitched the paper from his hands, exhaling as her eyes skimmed over the words. "…you have the kind of information I need. Don't deny it. You deserve a dumb title after all the eavesdropping you've done on and off-duty. Besides that…I want a bigger picture of what the hell's actually going on with the Seekers."

Garet decided against mentioning that the report only really needed rough background knowledge. Playing safe around Jenna just after she'd insulted her colleagues was better than getting yelled at or having something chucked at his head with a sniper's accuracy. He sat down on the bed, folding his arms and looking up at his friend. "Well…from what the servants have been saying, there's been nine sightings of possible Seekers, or something like that."

"I thought so. The sectors never report exact numbers."

"Uhuh? Guess you're right. But, it's not just that weird graffiti stuff showing up on the curtain wall, or that warehouse raid. There's also some stuff going round in the Venus sector…y'know, the kinda things that shouldn't ever be there, knives, real gold, all that. That's just hearsay, but it's better than nothin'. Noth_ing_. Dunno how it got there, but it's probably 'cos of the Seekers. I mean, you'd probably get it worked out. You're good at that kinda thing."

Strands of her red-brown bangs hung in front of Jenna's eyes. Behind the translucent screen, she mulled over the fuller picture she had now of Seeker movement. "Hm. Things taken from Mercury and Jupiter sectors…things showing up in the Venus sector…it sounds like the Seekers are trying to tell us they're there, and they'll do whatever it takes to overthrow the Empire. That or they're hoping to unnerve us and call us out to fight…but…"

Garet shook his head. "Far as I know, there's only ever three or four of 'em seen at a time nearby the citadel. Pair of boys about our age, always, and then either a little Jupiter kid or a Mercury girl." He chewed his lip almost meditatively and sighed. "Y'know, it makes me wonder if those three kids who escaped from the Venus sector are with 'em."

"Huh. That sword turned out to be pretty much proof for prior involvement with them."

"How come?"

Jenna clipped him round the head, tutting at his lack of memory. "Idiot. I told you why – remember? I was telling the Third Lady about that solo she had me do and the sword was important evidence!" She shook her head at him and sat next to him on the bed. "There are times when you…are unbelievable." When he only laughed, her look transformed into a half-joking glare that only half-heartedly strangled him instead of trying to kill him outright. "Sheesh, it's not like I can talk to just anyone like this. There's nobody else who'd get why I'm trying to find out about all this."

"'Cos you're interested?"

"Garet!"

"Yeah, I know, I know. It's linked to the Venus sector, so it's a chance for you to find out about what happened to your dad, all that stuff. And you're just interested." He shrugged, knowing only too well he'd be pounded for behaviour later. _Bit strange she hasn't done anything. I mean, we're still in the palace, and people could be listening…_ "Hey, I'm only telling the truth!"

Avoiding the smile creeping onto her face as he misinterpreted her actions was close to impossible. "I suppose so. What you were saying about those three Venus kids…if they are with Seekers, then the amount of trouble they'll be in if they're caught will be enormous. Ability to read, that's a whipping and a prison sentence. Running away is…hanging, I reckon. Treason is instant death. Probably decapitation. As far as I'm concerned, it's going to be quite difficult to manage all three of those sentences…"

Garet heaved his shoulders again. "Easy. Instant death – they get sent to my sister, she chucks a plant pot at 'em and puts them in a coma. Then they get the prison sentence and the punishment while they're unconscious." He swallowed, frightened by wat he was about to say even if it would never effect him. "Public hanging." Glancing down at his hands, he noticed that they were shaking uncontrollably, induced by the nervousness of what he'd said. "…it's inhuman. I know it's how things have been for a long time, but it's really…"

"Garet, you're acting more and more like you're not Mars as the days go by. Sometimes I wonder if you do it on purpose." Jenna stood up, kicking off her boots and wandering barefoot around the rug-strewn room. She let her toes be captured by the bright knots of wool, allowing the comfort from it to tingle up and through her body. "Seriously…" _But…what if it's not him who's changed, but me? _"Ugh, never mind. You're just dense."

"That's cruel!" he protested, feeling hurt when she only flashed a wicked smile at im in reply. "Aren't you meant to be kind to your friends? Hey – ouch!" His fingers leapt to his cheek where something thrown at him had left a gradually darkening scarlet mark; its tracks spanned across his cheekbone and down in a thick, blotchy line towards the bottom of his jawbone. "…please don't hit me, Jenna…"

Snorting, Jenna crossed the room and pulled his rigid hand away from his face, replacing it with two of her own fingers. Wrapped up in finding her psynergetic core, she didn't notice him flinch; he wasn't certain whether it was because of the stinging bruise or the fact she was touching him. Her fingers felt cold and brittle against his skin even though she was smiling. When they were younger her touch had always been warm and incredibly, perfectly real, whereas now…now it felt like she was trying to fade away, become a spectre or illusion, just like the rest of the palace. Just like the rest of the Clan. Like dead leaves in winter, losing their autumn brilliance and fading to white, skeletal things that only became another part of the trampled leaf-litter. The only things that remained were the trees… _Lords and Ladies rarely change, but beneath them it is not so strange_…

The inspector didn't know how to react when he jumped up and hugged her so tightly it was difficult to breathe. The friend was confused and disorientated, several times more so than the outer image. Looking closer, her eyes found the barrier around his mind and heart inching open more and more, revealing the cluster of garnet and ruby layers burning even brighter than it had the first time she'd seen it. A long, slender gash in the otherwise impenetrable sphere allowed plumes of white-hot fire to burst out and almost concernedly curl around _her_ somehow, the heat swilling around in her head and settling into her bones as a permanent boarder. Still unsure of her own actions, Jenna slid her own arms around his back and hoped she wouldn't be crushed.

Garet tried to curtail his relief, but he was powerless to avoid the surge of consoled joy when he felt the old, familiar, earthy warmth return to Jenna's body. _Probably shouldn't've got this close though. How'm I gonna explain if someone walks in on us? Aw, man…that'd be difficult._ Cocooned in reconciled gladness, he almost didn't hear what Jenna said.

"Are you going to let me go, or what? I've got to finish that report before eight, and at this rate that's going out the window." Chuckling, she pulled away from him and shook her head. "Seriously, Garet, that's just even more proof for you being less of a Mars Adept and more of a Clanless. Stay still this time, or that bruise won't go. You wouldn't think a curtain tassel could hurt so much…"

He was calmer for the second attempt. Normally the First Lady disapproved of healing unless you were about to collapse and die, and the habit of letting yourself be beaten up to the point of collapse was one common amongst the lower guards. Garet was definitely not an exception. It didn't help that he was already so drastically different from the rest of the Clan…or, for that matter, that he wasn't necessarily the brightest of men. Sometimes he had the habit of charging in without thinking and getting more hurt than anyone else.

Half the time Menardi disapproved of healing. But this was Jenna. It was something she'd inflicted, and she only wanted to get it fixed. Surely that would be acceptable. Come on, it was Jenna, only one of the strongest and smartest inspectors to date; she knew what she was doing. The First Lady wouldn't even know he'd been dumb enough to get hit in the first place. Safe, right? He'd be the only one to ever know, and Jenna didn't just go around selling secrets like some black market racketeer…

Even when she drew her hand away, his face tingled pleasantly where the red-orange psynergy sparks had infiltrated his skin and healed the purpling bruise. Aware that she probably wanted to finish off her work and not wanting to get yelled at by his captain for being late on duty, Garet nodded respectfully to Jenna. "Thanks. I'd better get goin' before I get yelled at." _By you, 'cos you've let your mind get glued to the job again. Captain doesn't bother me as much. He's not as frightening as Jenna or Kay._ "See you around, right?"

"Yes. Thanks for the help. I'll find some way to pay you back later, 'kay?" She smiled, using the unreadable enigma smile that could have meant galaxies' worth of different things. "Don't get yourself killed on duty, 'cos I'm not cleaning you up later. Get it?" Her smile broadened, letting her pearly teeth show at the expression on her friend's face, and giggles bubbled up inside her. "Ah…your face is priceless, Garet. Go on, get lost."

When he was gone, she went to her window and gazed out over the palace grounds, basking in the golden-orange sunset. Thinking. She'd seen the expression when he was holding her a while ago. In the infirmary…in the forest…probably lots of other times, too…strange. She'd never really noticed it before. What was it? Concern? Worry? Friendly compassion? She couldn't name it. But…it was…comforting. Him being her only proper friend and all…it was nice to know he treated her like a human.

Outside, Garet aimlessly wandered the corridors back towards his post, trying to pretend he could ignore the pain in his tightening chest.

* * *

Kay was not in a good mood. She had several reasons as to why.

One: Saturos had gone and called a godsdamn conference for the Lords and Ladies at _two in the bloody morning._ Did he have any idea as to how hard it was to get out of a comfortable, just-warming-up bed when you'd only put your head on the pillow ten minutes ago? Or how much of a nuisance it was to have to get into a set of heavy winter robes that had only just finished airing? Or how she really didn't want to hear anything about that pain in the ass of a festival coming up. She'd already decided she was going to have a cold during that week.

Two: the rumours. Oh yes, the rumours. About her brother. About that half-Venus inspector. How apparently they'd been seen going into Jenna's room earlier. That seriously, seriously pissed Kay off. How could people be so godsdamn blind? It was as if they knew nothing about her brother or his best friend. She knew full well about the way they treated each other. She knew. She, the girl who'd been brought up practically alienated, knew. And it ticked her off that others had black fabric in front of their eyes in terms of Garet. Just because he was different didn't mean he…!

Three: she was going to be facing the monthly paperwork tsunami at eleven. Concentrating on anything before that was…just so…severely able to push her closer to the edge of the pretty chalk cliffs she'd heard about that supported Mercury Lighthouse in the north…

Her feet, clad in her tooled leather boots, took her along the mirror corridor. Surrounded by the thousands of reflections around her that copied every movement she made, from the swirl of her brocaded skirts and robes to the flexing of her long, picture-perfect fingers, Kay struggled to keep her face straight and flawlessly composed above the toxic combination of thoughts simmering violently in the witch's cauldron she felt her mind gradually sink to becoming. Gods, the irony in thinking that. Everyone knew that the wicked witches of old were characterised by long ginger hair and bad tempers. Well, the Clans had long ago stopped witch-hunting. Ducking women in ponds to grant them certain death was far from the sophisticated society the Mars Clan wanted to portray.

By the time she reached the meeting room, the other Lords and Ladies had already arrived and taken their seats. Like her, they were all in their official robes or armour of office; even the Second Lord had made an effort to look presentable, and there were times when he was worse than Garet in terms of that. Kay made certain to make her walk towards her seat next to Karst stately and unhurried. It was not _correct_ for the Third Lady of Mars to rush. She always arrived _precisely_ when she intended to, aloof and above those waiting for her. That was the _proper_ way things were done. That was the way it was for all Lords and Ladies.

"Good morning, Lady Kay."

"Good morning, Milord. I present my apologies for my timing, but my maid insisted on getting under my feet." _I'll have to punch his face in one day. That look is really starting to piss me off even more._ "May I enquire as to the purpose of this meeting?"

The First Lord fixed her with a polite if frosty look. "Hmph. No less should be expected from you, as our interrogator. However, as we are now able to start this little meeting I may as well tell you all." Turning his head to the Second Lady, he nodded. "Let's see that report, Lady Karst."

A slightly-rumpled piece of paper was produced from the folds of Karst's cloak and passed along to the First Lord. "This was handed to me earlier this evening. If anything, it's…almost unnerving. I don't know where she got her statistics from, as they're frankly nothing like the official ones," the Second Lady said. "This amount of detail is only to be expected from her, but still…"

"Personally it doesn't surprise me," Saturos replied bluntly, handing the paper to the First Lady. "Considering precisely which of your inspectors wrote this, it's completely unsurprising. It was an unusual choice of person to send into investigating the Seekers in the first place, Lady Karst. You should have expected something like this." Ignoring the Second Lady's controlled look of utter distaste and bitterness, he glanced sidelong at the Second Lord. "I understand there have been problems in the cells."

"Ha! More than mere _trouble_, Saturos. It's been literally _chaos_ since the Seeker prisoners heard about the activity going on in the citadel!" He thumped the table with his fist, making it jolt Menardi's elbows off the tabletop. "The Seekers are causing too much trouble again. I've said it before and I'll say it again, they've got to be stamped out quickly! They're more of a threat than we think – so getting rid of them quickly is the best way forward!" Leaning back in his chair, he gritted his teeth and made it clear to the others that there was dark fire blazing in his red eyes. "Call them out and destroy them quickly – it's not like they're strong enough to defeat the army. If we show them what we can –"

"Agatio, the Mariner is with them, you fool!" Karst snapped, thrusting the report to Kay. She shook her head in pure disapproval, furiously drumming her dark pink nails on the slightly charred if highly polished table. She put a hairline crack in the wood that spread across the surface like a complex network of plant roots in soil, creating a spider's web in the oak. "Do you know nothing of history? The Venus Uprising was practically led by him!"

"Then he's an old man! It's not like he'd be able to put up much of a fight against the Clan for long. Karst, you can't be saying you're frightened of someone who's such a threat to our very existence." He thumped the table again, harder, making the spider's web pattern even more intricate. "Crush the whole movement and we've got rid of a dangerous problem. Mariner will just have to get caught up in it."

Kay had finished scanning through the report, her ears barely registering the loud conversation that was rapidly deteriorating into a cacophonic argument between the Proxian Lords and Ladies. The flicker of candlelight revealed a coherent understanding of what had happened during the writing of the report embedded in her pupils. Noticing the row going on next to her – _oh, typical. Agatio versus everyone else. Why does he even bother?_ – she cleared her throat a couple of times and rapped impatiently on the tabletop when she was ignored. "Excuse me, Milady Karst, but I may have a reason for the articulacy of this report."

Still glaring at the Second Lord, Karst spoke with a suppressed snarl at the back of her throat. "Really, Kay. Spit it out, then."

"Karst, that is not how you address your peers," Menardi said.

"It doesn't matter, Lady Menardi. After all these years I'm perfectly used to this." Kay tapped the report with her index finger, pointing to the statistics highlighted by strict pencil rings. "This report is Jenna's. Therefore, the reason why these statistics differ so much from those in official records is actually incredibly straightforward." She realised that the eight scarlet eyes were watching her with interest, almost as if they were unaware of what was so incredibly obvious. "Jenna is one of my brother's best friends. And he's well-known for his pesky habit of listening in on nearly every conversation going on around him." While Saturos' mouth curled into a sly smile, hers remained ruler-straight, unimpressed by the lack of imagination on the Second Lady's behalf. It was obvious that Garet had given Jenna the information. Obvious. "Naturally he would tell her. And for the record, I actually agree with Milord Agatio to some extent on what should be done about the Seekers."

Menardi ran her fingers through a wavy lock of her ash-blonde hair, chuckling. "Well, you are the interrogator. The more prisoners you have to talk to, the happier you are. Unless," she added, a lashing of conspiratorial sound mixing in with the rest of her voice, "your interest in the Seekers is…leaning in another direction." Her smile was annoyingly akin to the First Lord's, slightly malevolent and unnervingly sly, and Kay forced her mind into ignoring it. "One of the most ironic things about rebels is that they tend to be quite the lookers, so to speak…"

The Third Lady's hands slammed into the table, widening the cracks in the wood even further. Inside the emeralds of her eyes anger hissed and spat like fighting cats; her gaze was aimed directly at Menardi's face. "I don't know what the hell you're thinking, or why the hell that kind of crap got into your head in the first place, but it's completely inappropriate and I don't appreciate it. The only reason I would want to talk to Seekers is to get information from them, nothing more. I don't understand why you want to insult me because I'm loyal to the Clan and to the Empire and want to get rid of a pestilence spreading across Weyard." Glancing across at Saturos, Kay nodded stiffly. "If you'll excuse me, Milord, I don't think my contributions to this conversation are being correctly comprehended and I don't like being insulted."

With the door slammed shut in Kay's wake, the First Lord turned to Menardi. "First Lady…to someone who was previously your pupil, that was incredibly cruel."

"She's the one at the wrong age for this sort of thing. Eighteen isn't a great age. Just because she knows what she'd doing doesn't mean she's infallible. It's a serious concern, Saturos – what if she were to become attracted to some Seeker prisoner? She's nowhere near young or old enough to not be affected by something like that."

Agatio shook his head. "Huh. She's got enough on her plate, being the newest of us."

"That's precisely why we've got to be careful with her," Menardi replied smoothly, tracing the line of a crack in the table that curved underneath her arm. "But that reaction's proof enough for me that she's certainly loyal. She'd probably sap as much information as possible from prisoners without even considering what I was suggesting to her, especially now. I was never…completely assured of where her loyalties lay when she was my charge. Much like you with Jenna, Karst…" She tossed her head and pulled out her cigarette holder, flicking the black lacquered wood between her fingers. It gleamed almost sinisterly in the bright candlelight. "This investigation is going to be interesting now I'm certain about Third Lady Kay."


	10. Waiting

Well…it took a while…but here's chapter 10. Wow. 10. How did I get this far? Double figures for a chapter feels amazing…Yup. But anyway, back to seeing all of the protagonists used in one chapter. Though how Kraden managed to sneak in is beyond me. Sneaky old sage.

Waiting

Her fingers slid easily under the blue wax seal and broke it. Opening the letter, she stood up and paced around the room as she read; as usual, there was a strange, cryptic quality to the letter, making it understandable only to the few who knew the writer well. But this time there was something else about it that bothered the Revealer…

Sitting back down at her desk, piled high with correspondence from the squads scattered across the world, she reached into a drawer and withdrew an aging, unornamented brass candlestick and a tapering cylinder of yellowing beeswax. Fixing the candle into the stick took a few minutes due to the wax's rigidity, and her hands were sore where the wax had unexpectedly chafed her palms. Grimacing at the painful redness on her hands, she nonetheless ignored the soreness and instead tugged an uncooperative box of matches from where it was obstinately stuck in another drawer. After the candle was lit she let it burn awhile, her attention secured to the gathering storm decisively flinging hard pellets of water at Contigo that flung dust upwards from the ground and stuck to the thin windowpanes.

She had to be careful now. Turning the letter over to its blank side, her hands remained unfailingly steady as she hovered the paper over the candle flame and hoped that she would be right. To her relief, the presence of the hungry fire made the blank side reveal its secrets. Another letter appeared to scribe itself onto the paper, the black letters clear against the slightly discoloured background. The Revealer laughed softly. Invisible ink. Trust that old sage to write the most important part of the letter in lemon juice to ensure his companion wouldn't be able to read what it said.

This she read in more detail, her mind extracting the important phrases and adding them to one of the smallest files she kept in her head. Although it didn't give her much more information, it was all related to what had happened however long ago the incident regarding the Acolytes had occurred. Revealer knew she would probably never uncover the whole truth, and that like as not it would be others who would dissipate the thousands of fog- and mist-laced shrouds protectively cocooned around the event. But it didn't matter. It was something. And it was interesting.

So. No matter how many ancient scripts the man from the frame translated, he always had his conscious mind totally fixated on something else, something the sage couldn't extract from him. Occasionally he would mutter about some kind of 'feud' when he was alone or asleep. He'd been caught rubbing a patch of scar tissue around his right wrist. Every now and then he'd cast dangerous, grimly delighted glances towards Mt Aleph before turning and watching the south-eastern horizon with acidic joy scored into his face. Once or twice he'd been seen intently copying maps of the continent onto a small parchment roll and scribbling furiously across his copies with his pen.

Revealer snuffed out the candle with thumb and index finger, blowing on her fingers afterwards out of habit more than pain. _There are links there. I know there are. _She gazed at the rain. _One day I'll confront Mariner. I must know the answers. The ending…is coming soon. Without the answers it might not be the ending the Seekers have worked for over the past century._ Pretending to ignore the gnawing feeling that she ought to spend far more time working on the problem than she was ever able to, she considered what else had been written in the sage's letter. One part in particular had been disturbing.

She knew what she knew. And she knew it was a bad omen.

The sacred peak in Angara, Mt Aleph, had stood, apparently, since time began. It was fabled to be the birthplace of the first Adepts, although there was proof enough in the world for that to just be a story. It was the place that had been bathed in the incandescent light of the four Lighthouses when their power had been equal and the world's balance unharmed; it had been the place where the Golden Sun had risen to unleash Alchemy's power across Weyard back further in the mists of time that the secrets surrounding Mariner. It was the last resting place of the Elemental Acolytes, or so the stories went. Or so the stories were correct…

Four people dedicated their lives to keeping the elemental equilibrium stable, studying for years to perfect their abilities solely for the task. When the time had come, long before the Golden Sun's rising into the azure blue sky, they had been taken to the sacred peak and left there to control the balance in the world. Over time – nobody knew, nobody had recorded how long – they became stone, four marble statues standing serenely on what passed for plinths, the marble's network of veins across each Acolyte imprinting on them the colours of their element.

They had stood there…for how long was yet another mystery.

But then it was discovered that three of the Acolytes had been destroyed, leaving only the woman representing Mars behind. And even then, she herself was not the same: what had been skin developed layers of opal scales; the statue contorted out of shape and twisted into a new one; instead of being shot through with red and orange veins, the statue itself became entirely of those colours…

_And now the Mars dragon is glowing_. The Revealer rested her chin on her hand in the hopes of dismissing the mental image the winds were sending her of Jupiter Lighthouse, the dim violet light supposed to emanate from its aerie now almost blotted out completely by dark clouds that crackled with flashes of red-orange light that blinded Jupiter's power…

Drumming her fingers on the desk, the Revealer stood again and went to the window to let the weather slam into her, the torrent of hard raindrops digging at her face and excavating tiny gasps of pain from her throat. Storms rarely hurt her as much as this – in fact, they never did. Not since she'd taken the position of leader of the Seekers. This kind of storm wasn't natural. It was probably the sky's method of screaming at the deaf population of Weyard that something bad was coming and _they had to do something!_

No matter how long she waited at the open window, straining her senses to detect anything coming from the north-eastern winds, all she heard were snippets of unrelated incidents that left her mind faster than they had entered. The storm drowned out what may have been important, to be replaced by everyday unhappiness or joviality that collided and left the air ringing at the conflict. It sounded sour and depressing to her ears; when she sighed and looked up at the granite-coloured sky, wisps of her pale purple hair clung to her cheeks in fear of what could be coming for the Seekers.

"If we only had answers," she murmured. "But finding the right questions can be difficult." Shutting her eyes allowed the water to drip roughly onto her face. There was so much the Seekers had yet to find, to comprehend, before anything could truly be done. Finding any background to the Mars Acolyte was one of those things. She knew full well from what her mind's far-seeing eye could show her that finding such information would take time, and even then it might all be futile. Her visions showed her too many different incomprehensible things that made no sense, and she was powerless to stop the unerring strangeness; it would leave her confused and unsure, making her attempts at being calm and understanding difficult to say the least…

Yes. In the end, it was all about questions that had stayed unanswered for far too long. "Isn't that right?" her voice whispered. "Piers?"

* * *

The building that rose out of the ground near the palace was one of the first built in the Angaran citadel. At the top of the small tower was a small if stately statue of a dragon, its tail curling round the limestone-plated spire and clinging to the inside of one of the top floor's window frames. It gazed up at the sky, fading from tawny gold into the sloe-purple of twilight and eventually changing into the silky navy of the night, its emotionless eyes staring into the heavens as if waiting for a divine order to come.

Somewhere on the top floor of the Archives, three Mars Adepts searched the shelves. It would have been difficult getting out of the palace without being suspected of anything for two of them if it wasn't for the third's presence. As long as she was with them the visit was probably official and therefore completely fine. Ha. Sometimes the other guards were even dumber than Garet, Jenna found. If only they knew that nobody had been given clearance to enter the Archives for the last twelve years, it would have been a different matter entirely.

She held the candle up to look closer at the shelves of books and ancient documents, all jammed together and close to impossible to get out. The light hungrily devoured the darkness surrounding it despite the fact that it only made the winter night look darker than it was; in front of Jenna's eyes, tomes of Angaran history came into clear view, every one of them labelled neatly but almost illegibly – years of dust and Angaran weather had collected on them, and to find out what you were reading you had to brush away layers and layers of dust…

Her hands at last found what she was looking for and struggled to pull the book out. It was completely beyond her as to why the Third Lady was interested in the family trees of the Venus Clan, but it wasn't really any of her business. _What about the fact that I'm half Venus, though? Surely…she can't know that. Only a few people know, and she isn't…is she…?_

And what was it she'd asked Garet to look for? Documents on dreams and visions? The Third Lady certainly had eclectic tastes in reading matter…not to mention eclectic ways of breaking the rules to get that matter…

It was nothing to do with her. She should just mind her own business.

Heaving the book under her arm, Jenna watched her breath curl in the moonlight shaft and headed back towards the staircase. She would probably be the first back: Garet, as good an eavesdropper as he was, couldn't find a leaf on a tree without a magnifying glass, and the Third Lady was even more thorough a searcher than Lady Karst. _Kay should've been an inspector. But I guess interrogation's more her style._ She subconsciously shuddered, her memory scrolling past the paranoia of a few moments ago and blocking out the possibility of being questioned about it by the Third Lady…

After several seconds of drawing calming breaths she was able to still her mind and facial expression, forcing her feet to take her back towards the landing. When she saw Kay already there, her fingers tapping her temples almost as if trying to recollect something, Jenna was glad for her enforced calmness. If the Third Lady saw her acting out of place then the amount of trouble she would be in would be phenomenal. More than phenomenal.

Kay had more experience at keeping her face blank and chilly, the necessary austerity having seeped into her since Menardi had taken her under her dark red wing. Her eyes caught the slight tic of confusion that flickered across Jenna's face like a shocked firefly; her better nature decided against mentioning it. Becoming too alike the First Lady…such a deadly thought could shear straight through the fragile bond she had left to reality. As chilling as Kay was, as harsh she could be, she wouldn't give away her last vestiges of honest sanity. Kay wouldn't dare.

_Would the Third Lady of Mars?_

"Good. You found the lineage trees."

"Milady, I could hardly refuse when you asked me…you are the Third Lady…"

Kay cocked an eyebrow, making a sliver of moonlight lodge itself in her eye. "I wasn't referring to that, Jenna. I was more concerned with the possibility of the trees having been destroyed…considering…well, practically everything that's happened recently." She relieved Jenna of the aging tome and began to flick through the pages, scouring each one with her paperwork eye (the one whose expertise lay in picking out important things and ignoring the inconsequential) to find the name she was seeking.

"Milady, if I may be so bold as to ask," Jenna began, absently tweaking her skirts, "Why are you looking in Venus family trees? Surely there haven't been any incidents there lately – Milady Karst would have mentioned it…"

"This is a personal interest," Kay replied briskly, struggling to unstuck two pages and mentally hurling swearwords at the book. "Personally I disagree with many of Lady Karst's methods, no matter how much she is my superior. Letting the disappearance of potential Seekers from the Venus sector slide so easily is one of those things." There it was. That little symbol telling all the dangers of a person. Perfect circle, slashed with a diagonal line. Privately elated, she trailed her finger down the page, tracking the blood-thick pitch lines that spanned across the heavy parchment like spider webs. And there it was. "I want to find links between old rebels and new, to see if there could be other evidence against them…to restart the search…"

The inspector nodded, fog clearing in her mind. _So she's just after more people to question. That's okay. But…what does she mean, old rebels and new?_

Leaving the book on the marble slabs, Kay extracted pencil and paper from her brocaded winter robes and scribbled down possibilities. Of course, she'd have to get Karst to look into it. It wasn't as if there were many slashed circle Venus Adepts left these days, after the discrimination acts against them and the various methods of systematically removing families who had been ringleaders in the Uprising. She could work out if it was a slashed circle trio who'd disappeared. It would give the Clan more reason to search for them again; in the end, she'd have a more interesting job to do as well, interrogating them. Pushing her circlet back up her forehead, Kay flipped over the page to find the final few names.

'Jasper' was scored into the paper. A faint pencil line – an almost horrified line – linked him in marriage to an illegible name. Beneath the names were two…three others, one of them saying 'adopted' and another one pencilled in. Fascinated, her mind racing towards a possible conclusion, Kay peered closer at the pencil name and hoped that her private smile was unnoticed. Pencilled in shakily was the word 'Jenna'. The name to the left of it had the slashed symbol drawn on so hard it had almost gone through the parchment – oddly enough, the 'adopted' child was marked with the symbol of the Clanless. Well, it was feasible. Strange how the first child, a boy, how his mark looked like it had been added at a later date, though.

Kay flipped through the last score or so of pages before closing the book with an incredibly satisfying snappish _thump_. She had the names she wanted now. All she had to do was get Menardi to talk that bitch Karst around, and see what the Venus Clan told them about recent disappearances. Jenna…hm, it was a possibility, but possibly too dangerous. Kay knew perfectly well that Karst would probably find a method of discreetly removing her if she found one of her inspectors carrying something as unusual as a list from the Third Lady. Glancing down at the strip of paper, the Third Lady tucked the pencil away neatly and let her mind drift towards how she would deal with the escaped Venus trio – how would she get answers from them? Trick them? Be open? Threats? Psychological harm? – but what did it matter. _Ha. I'll get information out of them. I've got more than enough from others before them._

From somewhere around the corner there came a series of crashing sounds that bust through the Third Lady's reverie without the courtesy of a prior warning and made something in Kay's mind snap like dry, dead wood. It was called her patience.

She'd never had very much of it.

"Garet!" she roared with frustration through her gritted pearly teeth. "Why is it that every time I try to get something serious done you come along and screw it all up? Will you never learn to behave like what you're supposed to be? Hm? Will you ever get that stupid, bumbling manner out of your system and let something more sensible take its place? Do you not understand how grave the situation is here, you stupid idiot?!"

Nervously rounding the corner with one arm full of books and another shielding his head for flying plant pots, Garet tried to smile at his irate sister. _Uh…whoops, she's got fire comin' out of her eyes…oh, crap, am I in trouble._ "Oh…hey, sis…I kinda missed the stool in the middle of the path. Yeah, I'll just be goin'…" He recoiled from Jenna's glared reminder about behaviour and articulation. "Going. Sorry. Look, really, it's not exactly like I'm at home in a place full of books anyway, so if I get going then –" He bit his lip when Kay held up her hand to silence him. "Sis, please, I –"

"Shut up. Say one more word and I'll make sure you're in the Infirmary for the next month. If you make that much noise one of the other Lords or Ladies might find out that we're here. The amount of trouble you'll be thrown into can't compare to the amount I'll get." The Third Lady flicked the ends of her ginger ponytail back over her shoulder, holding out her other hand for the books her pathetic, waste-of-time of a brother had collected. Recently her dreams had become even more disturbing; she wanted to find out if it was really the onset of eternal insanity reaching through her crystalline, frozen armour and starting to tap into the core of what she was and creating the possibility of making her transformation into a cold-blooded lizard like her mentor complete.

Garet stared hard at the flagstones; knowing what Kay was frightened of had made him more wary of her in the past few weeks, and the way she seemed to harden even further into diamond, untouchable and too hard to care, scared the hell out of him. If she wasn't careful she'd be exactly like Menardi soon. If _he_ wasn't careful. _Dammit, I should go visit her more often…actually tell her stuff…it's not right for her to just disappear like this. Just 'cos Jenna didn't grow scales and get icicles inside her head, I though Kay was…y'know, fine. Gods, I'm so dumb…how come I didn't realise until a few weeks ago she was – was – was _going_…that I'm losing her…_

While the Third Lady perused the volumes given to her, Jenna silently slid over to Garet and patted him on the shoulder. She knew it wasn't the same as – when he'd unexpectedly hugged her a couple of days ago, because she couldn't see the strange, smouldering ruby and garnet sphere that sometimes had tiny cracks in it, but she'd known him for long enough to tell when he was troubled or in pain. _Yeah. Interrogation's definitely Kay's style. She gets at people's minds._ There wasn't very much else she could think of to do, but his smile was mutely grateful when he glanced at her. Sometimes he was so different in private from how he was in public that it could make both parts of Jenna confused and slightly annoyed. Still. Well. Um. She didn't think she'd have survived properly without him being like that. Um. What was going on with her head? Why was she being shy around someone who'd been her friend for…how many years?

"You two can go," Kay said absently, absorbed by the passages on mental understanding. The amount of detail about the psychology of dreams was fascinating, intoxicating…almost as interesting as her secret collection of books on plants and gardening… "Try to avoid causing any more catastrophes, Garet." Although she didn't notice the subconscious affection that had slid into her voice, it made her brother smile a bit more.

Inspector and Guard left the Archives at a regular pace to avoid seeming hurried or guilty of something. By now the sky was embossed with delicate stars cast in silently-pulsating quartz, adding to the light shed by the slowly waxing moon; it was easy to see where they were going, but this was Angara in the middle of October, and naturally it was godsdamn cold. Especially on a cloudless night as bright as this one was. Clear. Calm. Cold. Too cold.

Jenna elbowed her friend. "Hey. How d'you reckon Kay's getting on with that stuff you talked about once?"

For a moment he didn't answer, trying to put together a few sentences he wouldn't get yelled at about because of bad grammar or articulation or whatever the rest of that stuff was that the rest of the Mars Clan was so dumbly meticulous about. "Don't know, really. She looked better when we left than she's done since that meeting she had at two in the morning recently. Guess that's good, huh?"

"Wonder why she wanted that stuff on the Venus Clan."

"No fair! You got something _easy_ to get. I had to find stuff on dreams. Dreams! Come on, why does the _Third Lady_ want to know about dreams and visions? And why'd it have to be _me_ who went to get it?" he half-demanded, half-commented.

Jenna laughed. "Probably 'cos you're her little brother. Not that I'd know."

"Uhuh." He paused, flummoxed for a few moments by something he honestly couldn't remember. "Hang on a mo, why?"

"You dimwit. No family? Mom dead? Am I ringing any bells in that thick skull of yours yet, or do I have to get further up the belltower before I reach the pulley to make them chime?" She shook her head, still laughing, allowing her joviality to spread through the night. "Well, that makes sense. You're too tall."

"That's mean!"

"That's honest," she replied, quashing his protests by standing on her tiptoes and looking him in the eye. _Wow. I didn't realise his eyes were so brown._ "What kind of person wants a giant who's clumsy as hell and might one day do something really dangerous by accident for a best friend? Hm?" She dropped back onto the flats of her feet and continued walking back towards the main palace building without another backwards glance. "Come on, you idiot."

Garet followed her, very glad it was hard to see him blushing. Inwardly, he was hoping he'd get to see more of Jenna in that way she used to be, happy, jokey, a bit scathing…and so reassuringly real. Sometimes he felt closer to Jenna than he could to his sister, that bizarre, elusive woman gradually moving ever further from the help he wanted to give her. Jenna was so real.

And he was so much in love with her.

* * *

They'd waited for a while now, at least two weeks since their return to Angara. The two of them had worked together well for years, completing tasks without so much as a breath of true difficulty passing through them; now, as they waited by the mast that jutted up into the perfection of the night skyscape, Mercury and Jupiter were going to do something that offered up the possibility of something completely different from anything else they'd ever done. It had taken time for Mia to approach her friend for help, in a quiet, nervous way, and it had taken Ivan a while to find a night when it wasn't raining down in that typically depressing manner that frequented the Angaran October all too often: water like knifeblades, searing through the sky and slicing the ground into torrid mud; wind worse than an attack of blood-drenched and battle-hungry Rocs.

For Mia it felt like mutiny, and smacked of sharply bitter betrayal.

Ivan was merely uncertain. He'd never been completely convinced by Mariner on very much (unless it was the weather forecast), considering everything his sister had gone through over the years to get the strange Mercury man to open up a little more, to reveal a few more secrets from his past. That conversation he'd overheard the first time he'd met Mariner had stayed with him for a long while, uncertain about what all of it meant – what feud? Why did someone want to destroy Mariner? – and unsure as to why the only thing about Mariner that had changed was his eyes. Even then, it only seemed that he had a little more age in them – perhaps it was the way they could switch from yellow to pale amber to tawny…

There was more: why Mia was getting more nervous recently, how Mariner was avoiding all of them unless it was to outline more of the planned raid on the citadel. That was tomorrow. Before that, Ivan and Mia wanted to clear the unusually murky ether clouding around the squad leader and seemingly not trying to dissipate at all.

"When's he coming down?" Mia whispered, hugging her arms to keep warm against the harsh clarity of coldness brought by the October night.

"How'm I supposed to tell if you're talking?" Ivan replied a little tersely, fervently wishing he'd been sensible enough to buy a pair of gloves. Armlets for armour were all very well, but no use against the chill. "Just…Mia, Wings, just calm down. And if this doesn't work, you've got to tell me what happened to you to mean you ended up so concerned about Mariner. I don't like being left out."

"I know that," was the exasperated reply; beneath the incensed case for the words, Ivan caught undertones of regret and fear bubbling up through the fountain her personality normally was – kind, understanding, mostly happy.

"Well, I _don't_." The Jupiter Adept lapsed into silence, deciding to risk attempting that unusual trick his sister excelled at. He knew of the difficulty, especially with so little wind that night, but he wasn't one to be easily deterred. Waiting for a few moments for his psynergetic core to surface fully from within his mind and heart, he tentatively extracted a few slender, gossamer strands shimmering somewhere in that elusive spectrum between soft violet and dangerous yellow-gold, pinching them in his fingers and feeding them into the bright coldness of the air. Hama could complete the circuit needed with the skies without moving; he was nowhere near that standard. In fact, he never seemed to be near any sort of standard. Brushing aside the frankness he'd allowed his mind, Ivan began to concentrate on what the air had to say about Mariner's movements. He was folding up his telescope and starting to come back down the ladder, the metallic _clang_s ricocheting through the night.

"Hello, Mariner."

"Oh…good evening, Wings, Seer…" Mariner seemed distracted, almost disconnected from the rest of the world. Normally he would smile at them when he greeted them. Normally his words had more substance to them; they sounded like an empty crabshell being buffeted around by the tide. "…is something the matter…?"

Mia was suddenly brimming with concern she struggled to restrain, and couldn't help but stare in horror. "Mariner, your wrist is…what happened to make it…?" This time the tone imbued into her voice was one of terror, with quieted distress poking through. Her aqua eyes were transfixed on Mariner's right wrist, where the scarlet strip of material was still wrapped around securely. Blood seeped out of his flesh into the fabric, which dripped occasional spots of moonlight-illuminated redness onto the boards of the deck. "Did _he_ do something?"

Ivan couldn't speak. Any fragments of ideas bonded to the veins in his throat and choked him.

For some reason it seemed like Mariner hadn't even heard Mia's worried queries. He turned from the two Adepts quite abruptly and strode away, the light tangling in his clothes and hair and casting a pale shadow over his face when he stopped and glanced back at them over his shoulder. "…it…doesn't matter anymore. _He_ has more than enough strength to do far more to me. This is meaningless…"

"But Mariner, you're…that amount of blood…what are you talking about, meaningless? That needs healing!" Mia exclaimed, hurrying forward to stop the bleeding. Kindly, well-meaning blue light shimmered at her fingertips as she reached out to touch the cuts which, now she could see them properly, were far deeper than they first seemed. It looked almost as if the lifeless material had developed a razor edge and sunk into the older Mercury Adept's flesh.

Mariner stepped back from her, holding up his other hand in opposition. "…no…that…won't help at all. Imilian psynergy would only worsen something like this wound on me." He shook his head, as if attempting to dispel the girl's presence with a mere gesture.

The young Jupiter finally rediscovered his voice. "Wait a minute, Mariner! Why…why are you avoiding us?"

"For your own safety…" Mariner turned away a second time and made his way towards the door to the lower decks. "…especially for your safety, Mia. Until _he_ is resealed, try to avoid me. I may be unable to protect you while _he_ is at large. I had hoped to mend the rift in our Clan…but while _he_ is free, explaining…what happened…may only widen that rift…"

"Mariner?" Ivan could only stare at the disappearing figure in confusion and intrinsic dread, clouds forming in his amethyst eyes and obscuring the Mercury Adept. Unsure of what to do he turned to Mia, only to see hollowness in her body that made her brittle and scared. _Oh Gods. Mariner, what…what you said…what did it all mean? What have you done to Mia?_ The vivid memory of the harsh lines of liquid ruby against Mariner's pale skin made Ivan shudder inherently, something stirring in his stomach that was uncomforting and only served to frighten him more. _What have you done to yourself?_

It took the Angelical Healer a few minutes to relax again and turn to face Ivan with her usual serenity composed on her face. "Well. I'll be going to bed."

"Mia, how can you just – I don't even – what's going on? Please just explain!" he pleaded, noticing that just underneath the calmness was nothing more than more nervousness and terrified dismay. "…Mia, please don't cry. Just tell me."

She murmured the story of how she met Mariner and what had happened afterwards. She barely rose her voice above a whisper when she explained what she thought was happening, almost afraid that she had jinxed everything into happening. By the end of her nearly silent explanation, Ivan was all too aware of the flood crashing from her eyes and down her pale cheeks.

_Soon as we're done with the Archive raid tomorrow, I'm contacting my sister,_ he decided. _Maybe she'll be able to make Mariner explain himself properly, even if her conversations will only be cryptic and more than enough to fright Mia into crying again. But she'll be able to make him explain. I hope.

* * *

_

Midnight echoed silently through the ship, the unheard and unstruck tolls finding a way through the labyrinthine passages inside Isaac's mind until the sound forced him to snap his eyes open. For several moments he stared at the ceiling without showing any signs of disturbance, allowing the darkness to cocoon his otherwise still form in what happened in the night. He was shrouded in others' anxiety, the purity of terror (and that came from nearby), and so many other bizarre emotions he'd never be able to describe with his normal ideology. It would take the version of himself he preferred to hide.

Odd. This sort of thing had happened before, but he'd never been so aware that the emotions exhibited by people some nights were unnervingly similar to how Felix had been for several years of his life.

The thought made him shudder apprehensively, remembering only too well how difficult it had been for him in both mentalities to stop that lonely boy from becoming even more so. Sapphire eyes, now slightly glazed, returning to their original position watching the bare boards forming the ceiling, Isaac sighed. _Yep. That was difficult. Don't really want to remember it much._ At least he was fairly certain that none of the night's emotions were because of Felix. Fairly certain. If anything, some of them felt like they came from Ivan or Mia…

He was swamped suddenly by a star-bright amalgamation of other emotions, packed tightly into an almost miniscule ball and therefore incredibly intense. _Owow…this is why I like my docile personality…it's not affected by other people's emotions as much…_ It took him a fraction of a moment, after recovering from the severe and definitely unexpected blow to his mind, to realise with terror that made him freeze in position precisely where the knot of terror and anguish had come from.

_This is why we don't like having a room each_, he thought as he tumbled out of bed, dragging half the sheets with him, and hurriedly yanked on his clothes over his nightshirt. He left his scarf where it was, slung over a chair almost reverentially, and almost ran down the corridor to reach the room he'd felt the tangle of conflicting emotions come from. _Knock. Then go in._

It didn't surprise him that Felix was already there; he'd suspected that the Venus Adept had been even closer to his sister since the still unexplained occurrence on the way to Lemuria a couple of weeks ago. Isaac stood in the doorway, hair looking even wilder and more untamed in the guttering candlelight than sunlight or moonlight could ever make it. Neither of them spoke for a couple of minutes, instead watching Sheba as she dug her nails even further into her brother's chest, her body wracked with unconscious sobs and shivering from the autumnal chill that threatened to extinguish what little light was in the room.

"She's still asleep."

"…yeah…but…what d'you…?"

"Quit acting like an idiot, Isaac. You probably know far better than I do about what it is and why she's like this. Use that sense of yours, just for once." Felix flinched when Sheba's nails dug even further through his tunic and into his flesh. "…will you stop that? Just standing there, emotionless as a Mars? That's bad for your health."

Isaac shut the door and sat on the end of Sheba's bunk, another sigh escaping from his lips and trickling into the atmosphere. "You think it's those dreams she was always having?"

"They weren't dreams, Isaac. The word you're looking for is nightmares." If the reply was meant to sound cutting, then it was half-hearted, too. "This kind of thing makes me so godsdamn frustrated. I can't do anything to stop what's happening to her. I couldn't help her in the Venus Sector. I can't help her now. And you ask me why I'm a pessimist."

"I didn't say anything," Isaac pointed out. "At least we're here for her. That's better than nothing, isn't it? C'mon, it's not like she's ever blamed you for not helping her. You need to lighten up a bit."

"Then you need to darken. People called you 'sunshine boy' behind your back when we were in the Venus Sector, did you know that?" While Isaac shook his head mutely, Felix managed to prise Sheba off his chest and somehow got her to lie back down on her bunk. _At least she's calmed down a bit now._ He carefully tugged the sheets back over her body and smoothed out her hair, leaving his hand on the crown of her head when he turned his attention back to Isaac. "Any idea as to how much of my time I spend trying to look after you two?"

"Too much for your own good," Isaac replied calmly, simply. "Maybe we should leave her for now and come back to check on her later –"

Felix's glare silenced him easily. "You can do that if you want, Isaac. I always stay. I don't want Sheba to get hurt if there's something I can do to stop it." He glanced back down at his sister, now sleeping peacefully with the edge of a smile delicately etching its way onto her face. "That's my other reason for staying with the Seekers. I promised I'd look after Sheba. She's my responsibility. I can't just…just…"

"Y'know, Felix, when you talk like that it makes me feel really left out," Isaac grinned. "Guess I might as well stay to keep you company before you lose yourself to paranoia again like when you were little." He noted the look shot at him. "That mark is not your fault. C'mon, let's find something more cheerful to talk about."


	11. Centenary Archived

Right then, new chapter. Just warning you, there's a fight at the end, the result of two very stubborn personalities clashing. Heh. And Isaac really does flirt strangely, doesn't he? And 'insub-thingy' is insubordination. Wow. That's two characters who have trouble with that word.

Also, longest chapter so far. Feels very long. I don't know how I wrote it and did my history coursework at the same time. Well, enjoy.

Yes, I know it's taking me forever to update now, but it would be nice to have a couple more reviews…

* * *

Centenary – Archived

The autumnal hues, ranging from blinding golds to stunning chestnuts and flaming reds, mingled to perfection with the crispness of the morning; leaves flittered from the branches of aging trees, snagged by the teasing air currents and buffeted back and forth by the playful wind before being dropped and spiralling effortlessly back to earth. In the citadel the celebrations were well underway in the three main sectors, the streets layered with Adepts wandering at peace between the shops and sectors, most of them innocently unaware of the backcombed chaos making the air in the palace – in Mars citadels across Weyard's surface – fizz uncontrollably like fermenting fruit with an overdose of sugar.

In the final sector things were very different. Although the circumstances for the Venus Clan were not the same as normal, they all knew somewhere in their minds that things were not the same as usual. On this day it was more normal for the number of guards around the citadel walls to be doubled to protect the Clans from conflict. And, unlike the oblivious Jupiter, Mercury and Mars sectors, the Venus sector was only too aware of what made the officials in the Mars palace tremble these days, with either anger or fear: Seekers.

Midday brought a little more clarity to the situation for the many Venus Adepts in the fourth sector that was more slum than anything else. The stones in the ground began to slip when an unexpected shower of rain, furiously rapid and wrathfully powerful enough to smash hard, weathered chunks of granite – even quartz – into miniscule shards that laced the mud with a potential death-trap for the unwary, was unleashed on the undefended sector. The Venus Clan remained unafraid of this, instead turning out to see what or who had created such an unprecedented storm.

"It's been a hundred years since the last attempt was crushed," a low, peaceful voice said from somewhere above the wary Clan. "I was wondering if the Venus Clan would help an old ally remind the Mars Clan to be more careful these days."

From the knot of cautious people someone laughed. "Ha! They're lax. Didn't expect the Seekers to hit 'em so hard, did they?" There was a resounding chorus of general agreement, curses and bitter chuckling flung in wherever the Clan thought necessary. "Not like they even really bothered with us after the Uprisin' was stopped."

"It'll be interestin' to watch how they handle the new problems they've got."

"Very. Gotta say, don't fancy fighting the Mars lot, though…just get beat up again, won't we?"

"Mm. Branded new, too."

"_Slashed circle_."

"Anything but that!"

The confusion of voices was undecided, bemused, and the owner of the voice knew full well that the answer he would get would be nothing like the one given a hundred years previously – this time, with the fear of the slashed mark and the cataclysmic power of the Mars Clan embedded deep inside the mind of the Venus Clan, he expected little more than vague cooperation. Despite how deep the grudge against the Angaran Mars Clan ran, scorching through memory and myth and time's shroud of intoxicating mist, nobody wanted to end up the way some families had: permanently marked, forever shunned, considered worse than serf or slave. The sign of the slashed circle was never one that brought you friends. It was a sign of shame; you'd tried to help, but ended up burning in hell, on earth, for your righteous sins…

"It depends what kind of help you want, whoever you are."

"Yeah…"

"How can we trust someone if we're gonna endanger ourselves?"

He waited for the clutter of voices to fade into expectant silence before acting. Touching his fingers to the red knot at his wrist, he focused his psynergy into the ground, following it along the soil until it was gathered in front of the Venus Clan. Water emerged from the swampy mire of mud in a clear pattern, ensuring that it was understood precisely who he was. "I understand what you say. It hurts to carry such a mark as this, and I wish to avoid violence for your Clan when there is already so much around. I'm not asking for a rebellion, only a little assistance."

"Assistance?" The single voice was wary, its owner probably busy staring, nonplussed or terrified, at the shape of the puddle before the Clan.

"It's difficult to shock the Mars Clan when the Seekers don't really have a symbol. I thought I'd use my own to verify what they should be worried about." He paused, allowing the idea to submerge into the various minds out there in the mud. "Make sure you don't shoulder any of the blame for what happens if the Mars question you. Blame the leader of the Venus Uprising. Spare yourselves any more pain than you already suffer from…"

"You want the blame? Weird assistance."

"If that's what he wants, then it's his fault."

"It's…there's a word for it. Publicity. Making the Seekers known more?"

"C'mon, what else d'you expect from a legend?"

Mariner smiled, the memory of what had happened the last time he had collaborated with the Venus Clan somehow not bringing him any pain at all as he trod the mud-drenched track back towards the citadel walls and the Mercury sector entrance. It may not have been what _he_ expected, but Mariner couldn't stay the same forever no matter how little he changed. Besides, this method would keep more than just the Venus Clan safe. This way the others in his squad wouldn't be endangered as well.

Instead, the fury of the one who destroyed the Acolyte statues would be pinpointed to him. Instead, the hunt would start sooner. Instead, the forgotten myths about Elemental balance and the Mercury Clan would remain hidden, a secret kept till his demise. Fire and earth and wind and water…and light and dark and the deadly rifts that lanced forever across time and space and Clan and kin and life and death…and only when all that was understood would the crisis that had spanned centuries finally be resolved. Only then would there be honest peace. Only then would there be a true ending, one Mariner wasn't certain he wanted to come soon. It would expose everything he had spent so long hiding to avoid harming those he was close to, in the hopes of mending the rift that had long ago viciously torn his Clan apart, biting and gnawing at the very morals at the base of the Mercury Clan until it had driven one of them to something close to contaminated insanity and…

…_and…it filled the Lemurian cemetery…

* * *

_

Bright blue, turquoise, vivid aquamarine, sea green, polished sapphire, gentle navy…

The cascades of brilliant blues awed Mia, entrancing her completely in the ribbons and banners fluttering above the buildings in the Mercury sector. Even if it was in celebration of something so…so…ugh, it made her sick to think that it was in memory of something crushed that had an honest, rightful cause, but she was unable to escape from the utterly, almost spitefully _devious_ snares around her. How did the citadel know she loved more than anything to spend her time wandering around market stalls looking at beautiful things…? _I'm going to hold everyone up, but all of this is just…_

It was certainly a good distraction from what had happened the previous night, which had left her more than slightly distraught. Although she was an Angelical Healer, one who served to make things better, who had seen wounds far worse than that, the sight of Mariner's wrist dripping blood onto the deck and his apparent lack of care had made her worry uncontrollably inside. She knew that _he_ had been released from the binding placed on _him_, and the knowledge only made her panic grow swiftly into a mountain higher than the Goma Range or the fog-choked beacon of Mercury Lighthouse. Inside, she knew that Ivan was probably little better, but he had always been so much better at handling things like seeing comrades hurt than she had. He was never a never-ending waterfall of emotions.

_I've got to get my mind focused on the job again._ Even if she had to drag her mind shrieking and fighting all the way back to concentration, she had to get it done. Otherwise the blatant danger the squad was in would expand massively into something they like as not would be unable to escape from. Especially for the three from the Venus sector, if the Mars were looking for them. _I hope they'll be okay. I hope Mariner's okay too, wherever he is. He said he was going to help with this mission, but he disappeared the moment we got near the citadel. I don't know. I hope _he_ isn't planning to come near any time soon, though…_

"Smile, Mia!"

She jumped, unexpectedly startled from her thoughts, and turned to face the owner of the voice. He beamed at her, the autumn sunlight reflecting off his messy hair and making it turn into a rich, unkempt gold, with darker strand only accentuating the brightness of his smile. "Aw, c'mon, Mia…it's not fair if you go around looking down like that all day."

"What do you mean, unfair?" She was perplexed by Isaac's strange statement.

"It's not fair on me. You look much better when you smile, so when you're down it reminds me of people being depressed and how hard it is to get 'em out of that slump." The serious intensity in his shockingly blue eyes seemed to be attempting to trepan her skull again, and he noticed how Mia turned away to avoid him getting at her thoughts. _Oops. Messed up again, didn't I? I want to help her._ "Besides, smiling is good for your health." He nodded a couple of times to convince himself, beatifically baring his teeth when Mia looked back at him, evidently bemused by his behaviour. "Hey, we've already got one pessimist. Isn't that enough?"

A giggle escaped from her throat as they started walking through the sector towards the stern metal fences, softened slightly by more blue ribbons and flags strung along them, and the wide open ornate gate that led to the Mars sector. "Guess so. But he's right about some things. Like how you should stop eating your scarf."

Isaac tugged the material from his mouth, looking disgruntled. "I'm just nervous. Have you seen the looks I've been getting? They can tell I'm Venus." He sighed, reluctantly reaching for his other nature and attaching it to his normal one with well-practised ease that was invisible to everyone bar those he trusted beyond everything. "We'd better go before someone starts asking questions. You really should start smiling, though," he added, his own smile more discreet than before even if the sunlight instilled in it was even more concentrated and uplifting. _Maybe those guys back in the Venus sector were right. 'Sunshine boy'. Maybe I am._

"Okay, you win. See? I'm smiling," Mia replied, her mouth curling up at the sides into her gentle smile. "I was just thinking about some things that have happened recently. It's all quite mysterious, and it got to my head a bit."

"Mysterious? What sort of things?"

Mia had seen the look of polite interest before on Isaac's face, and by now knew full well he was trying to get answers out of her mouth without her permission for them to leave. "Oh, stop it, Isaac. I don't trust you enough yet to tell you."

"Aw, c'mon…" _Not enough yet…you spoilsport, Mia. You're making me work hard for this, aren't you?_ "That's just being mean! I only want to be your friend," he pointed out, ignoring the little tick deep in his ego that was stubbornly reminding him about something _else_ that dropped into his head for a visit whenever Mia was around. He didn't seem to react when Mia shook her head and walked on ahead, heading deeper into the red and orange garbed Mars sector, letting his apparent docility get the better of her. "Y'know, Mia…sometimes…"

"What?" she asked, looking over her shoulder at him. _Okay, right when I start concentrating properly something happens to him…what should I do?_

"Sometimes I wish I could give you more than a smile." For some reason, Mia couldn't avoid noticing that this time his smile was tamer, suppressing the almost childish brightness that he normally exuded when grinning. It was almost like how Ivan looked so much more mature when he used psynergy…only…different. As if he had put meaning into this sudden, unexpected show of maturity.

The Mercury girl shook her head with bemusement. "You're such a strange boy, Isaac. No wonder you're always being looked after, just in case you scare someone. You know, that act, how you're always sort of docile and compliant on top…and then underneath you're just so incredibly cryptic I just don't know if I can trust you." She risked a delicate smile, refreshing as a soft shower of cooling rain on a hot day. "You don't make sense."

He didn't take offence, because he didn't like being like that. Instead he shrugged, strolling up to her and gazing at something up in the sky before winking at her. "Heh." He placed one finger against the side of his head, looking enigmatic as he spoke. "Part-time genius. Sorry if I don't make sense." His other hand rested on her shoulder when he properly focused on her fairly sceptical face. "We part-timers need to stick together. Let's go."

"Part-timers? Now you've got me even more confused. I don't understand you at all…"

He laughed as he walked on ahead, the sound kind in her ears. "I'm a part-time genius, right? And you're a part-time beauty. 'Cos you're just scary when you're angry." Beaming over his shoulder at her, he pretended to be oblivious to the almost unnoticeable blush that surfaced like a new, pink-edged water lily from the still, tranquil pool Mia mirrored when she wasn't being emotional. "Come on, let's go and find the others before someone starts asking questions about what someone like me's doing here." He waited for her to catch up to him, and they carried on through the Mars sector and the festival towards the palace, which loomed up through the sky high above the other buildings, the stone dragons curled around the few turrets reaching towards the heavens as if hoping to catch an elusive, falling star.

They heard the other three before they saw them, but it was unmistakably them. Isaac recognised the sounds of his oldest friend in the middle of a scuffle anywhere – not from the noise made by the Venus boy, but more by the reactions of those he was fighting. Realising your enemy was left-handed just when they'd thrown out their right fist at you wasn't a pleasant experience for anyone, and especially those who knew being hit by Felix's right fist hurt like hell already. The sounds of terrified curses and infuriated insults were common enough in the middle of the average Venus brawl; they came more often, louder, and with an extra element of astounded upper classes to take into account as well in this fight.

"What happened?" Mia whispered to Ivan when the five Seekers left the unconscious Mars guards in the back alley and began to hurry towards the palace to be in time for the guard shift. "I've never seen anything like that, even when Mariner's fighting."

The little Jupiter Adept swallowed nervously before replying, ensuring he kept his eyes fixed straight ahead. "Those Mars guards stopped Felix because they'd worked out he was Venus Clan and they wanted to know what he was up to in the citadel. He just…reacted. First they argued for a bit about where he was from, and then he lost his temper and lashed out. Scary, isn't it?"

"He knocked out two Mars guards without any help, and only got away with a black eye…" the Angelical Healer was astounded and shook her head repeatedly in triple-distilled disbelief. "It's more than merely scary, Ivan. I'm not surprised they managed to jump us when we were looking for Jasper's letter in the cottage if they can manage stunts like that."

"Yes. Me too." Leaves, damp and deceptively cold, dropped into Ivan's blond mop of hair, and he irritably brushed them out, glancing up at the sky warily. His eyes widened as they snagged on the mass of enraged grey clouds lining the sky with potential storms. That only meant one thing, as there was very little wind. "Oh, no…it's going to rain on us, Mia…" he moaned, protectively covering his head with his arms and ducking out of habit as he stumbled through the streets. Picking up the sound of Mia's giggle, he span round on his heel. "Hey! How would you like it if you were doomed to be short already, and then the prospect of shrinking comes up? You wouldn't be laughing!"

The other Seekers were content to watch Ivan's apparent overreaction to the weather when it evolved quickly into a sleek argument between him and the Angelical Healer. Glancing around from her position between Isaac and Felix, Sheba was also keen to find other things inside the citadel that could thieve her attention from her control and give her something new to talk about. It was only natural for her to be interested; she was curious as ever, and it was only the second time she'd properly been inside a town of any size. The sights were completely new to her, new and foreign and amazingly different from what she was used to…the mud, the harshness, the seemingly endless hours of work and hateful discrimination…

_Isn't that…the inspector who came to the cottage that time? We are so in trouble if she is._ Sheba elbowed her brother and glanced in the direction of the stern-faced girl with thick red-brown hair in an even sterner ponytail. She might have been cast out of steel, she was so apparently emotionless and still, staring straight in front of her as she strode along the streets of the Mars sector. The leaves didn't dare to fall on her clothes.

Jenna felt someone glancing at her and surreptitiously slid her eyes sideways to survey her watchers. In her irises the colour thickened and deepened when she hooked into another pair of eyes, a pair of hauntingly familiar eyes that were just as unable as she to break the gaze until the two Adepts had properly passed one another. She halted, her reel of monochrome memory flashing in her mind until she found what she was looking for – those same eyes, in the same face, but in a very different situation…

Another thing about that memory sprang out at her like Wild Wolves on the hunt – unexpected, rare, shocking. It wasn't black and white with sepia grey shadows as the rest of her memories were; instead, it was thick with perfectly beautiful colour, brown and green and blue and yellow assaulting her eyes from the inside. There was only one other memory she possessed that was in such vivid colour – when she first met Garet, that stupid, clumsy, completely un-Mars-like guy who for some bizarre reason was her best friend…even if he did say some things that sounded as if there was another meaning behind them…

_Colour…that's for people who are important to me…or things that are important…_ Even that dream she'd had weeks ago, that sour, disgusting reminder of how she'd been treated as a child, was in glossy, sophisticated monochrome instead of brash colour that made sharp, painful memories only more realistic and therefore excruciatingly raw and tender. _Why do I remember that…in the Venus sector, of all places…in colour? Sure, one of them felt kinda familiar, but what does it mean? In colour? Why?_

The Venus sector. She'd seen that pair of eyes in the _Venus sector_, in the face of a _Venus Adept_ who was sharp, brambly and dangerously close to insulting the Mars Clan when he was being _polite_ to them. _Oh gods, Elements. There's a Venus in the citadel._

Spinning round so fast her ponytail flew out behind her, she broke into a dash as she scanned perplexed citizens going past, their citizenship badges in place on lapels, cloaks, tunics, jerkins, the little brass disks stamped with an imprint of an 'A' wreathed in everlasting flame gleaming in the final bright rays of sunshine. Back up the street, towards the palace. _Venus in the citadel. Venus in the citadel._ She wanted to scream the words at the top of her voice, at the most forcible fortissimo she could muster, just to get rid of part of the abominable knowledge that such lowlife as the Venus Clan had actually dared to enter the citadel…!

"Hey, Jenna!"

She almost tripped over her feet when she tried to stop. Her eyes bored into Garet's, her anger rising up and up like magma thrusting upwards through the crust of the world to create a volcano that exploded with such force, sending pyroclastic flows shrieking down the mountainside towards whatever was in the way and incinerating it without a moment's thought. "You idiot! Can't you see I'm trying to do something here?"

"Well…no, not really, 'cos it just looked like you were running round for no reason. Are you off-duty? We could…" Garet gradually recognised the homicidal look on Jenna's face glaring out at him and baring poisonous fangs. "…uh, um, I don't s'pose you'd like me to say 'sorry', do you? I mean, you go charging around without tellin' people why, course they say dumb things…"

"Shut up, shut up! You're always saying dumb things anyway! Can't you act like a normal member of our Clan, just for once in your life, and have a bit more pride and self-control! I'm busy!" By the time her mind outstripped her mouth it was too late for her to retract what she'd said. _Oh…oh damn, oh gods, I just said all that to Garet. I actually said all that. In public. Bloody hell, I just yelled at my best friend in public!_

Garet noticed the murderous gleam to her eyes metamorphose over a few aeon-long moments into horror and what looked to be self-disgust. Swallowing nervously and finding it difficult with veins bunched up in his throat, he forced a smile onto his face. "It's kinda mean to yell at your friends, Jenna. Did somethin' come up that I didn't know about?"

_Yeah…Yes. Yes, something came up…oh gods I yelled at Garet…_ Jenna righted herself, composing her face into the most socially acceptable marble mask she could use before attempting to speak again. "Articulate properly. Forgive me for that outburst, as it was completely uncalled for and definitely not your fault." Grabbing onto his hand as she walked past, she dragged him into one of the side-alleys. "I'm so sorry."

"Huh, I get that all the time. It's no problem." Garet shrugged, as if it was nothing. Jenna knew he could get angry even quicker than she could, and was probably suppressing the urge to yell right back at her because it wasn't done for a guard to talk like that to an inspector. It simply wasn't allowed. "I'm gonna explode 'cos I really want to yell back at people and can't, y'know? One day I've gotta take some time to just take my anger out on somethin' – some_thing_ – or I'll do some_thing_ even dumber than normal, huh?"

"Garet, are you really alright with me yelling at you like that?"

"Well, if I yell back you'd smash my head in, wouldn't you? Better safe than sorry, any day. I kinda like living." He shrugged again. "Uh…no offence, but you'd probably kill me if you hit me. And that look really doesn't suit you well. Uh. Oops."

Jenna was about to reply sweetly, but with her fist ready and waiting to connect with her friend's midriff, when the downpour started. The rain rammed onto them from above, stinging their bodies where it touched and leaving red marks if it contacted with bare, unprotected skin. Jenna gasped for breath, the water still relentlessly slamming onto her from above. "Ah…ow…"

"Bloody hell!" Garet cursed, water smashing into his face when he stupidly decided to look up at where the rain had come from. "Agh! Stupid weather! What time is this for a storm?!" Ducking his head, he glanced upwards with anger filling up his eyes quickly. "Will you stop, you dumb rain? This bloody well HURTS! Do you not understand that we like being _alive_, huh, instead of getting killed by raindrops armed with godsdamn _swords_?"

The burning water stopped being thrown on the citadel as abruptly as it started. Jenna stood upright again, blinking several times. "…ow! That was…just so…"

"Painful," Garet finished for her, straightening up and feeling his back click as the kinks in his spine ironed themselves out. "Typical Angaran weather…can't you be nice to us for once, up there?" he called to the sky. "Huh. Like the gods even listen to us. Bet they don't. They're just like the First Lord and Lady, sittin' around all day unless they want to smite someone…" He realised that Jenna wasn't replying; instead she stood there, staring at something in the cobbles. "Hey, Jenna? What's up?"

"Garet."

"Yeah?" he answered, hoping to get a straight answer out of her. _Aw, man, it looks like she's gone and put her mind back on the job again._ "What is it?"

"Look." She pointed at the cobbles, a shudder of anticipation reverberating through her bones. Where there had been nothing but the occasional goldy-brown leaf a few minutes ago was now a strange-shaped puddle. "Isn't that the thing your sister had us help her look up when she was interrogating those three Venus Adept Seekers? That mark?" She zoomed through her memory again. "The…slashed circle, isn't it?"

Garet frowned at the puddle, not seeing whatever it was that Jenna could. "I'm not seeing anythin' there, Jenna."

"You must be blind…" Jenna murmured, terrified fascination burning in her face and body language as she gazed at the water. _There's a Venus boy in the citadel,_ she remembered as the connotations of the slashed circle mark came to mind. "Garet," she added, looking up and meeting his perplexed gaze, "We've got to find one of the Lords or Ladies. Now."

* * *

Ivan dejectedly tried to wring out his cape again and gloomily watched rainwater patter onto the cold flags covering the floor of the Archives. Using a rainstorm as a distraction for them to get into the Archives was all very well, but what if he started shrinking because he'd got caught in the rain? _I won't be able to face anyone if I shrink!_ he thought, rapidly shaking his head and spraying droplets of water over the floor again.

"Stop that. We'll get caught if they find too much water around," Felix warned him, glaring at the Jupiter Adept through his water-sodden bangs. "Come on. We've got to find the right floors for the books we're looking for, and you dripping water everywhere won't help. As if we're not all wet enough already," he muttered under his breath, trudging up the stairs in Isaac's wake.

The five Seekers paused at the top of the first flight of stairs, all of them staring in one form of amazement or another at what was before them (bar Isaac, who looked at it as if it was nothing special). A massive chamber sprawled in front of their eyes, lined with shelves brimming to overflow with books and ancient parchment scrolls, the walls bedecked with perfected accurate watercolour maps and old portraits, the paint peeling slightly due to the sheer immensity of its age. The floor was strewn with fine, knotted rugs of innumerable colours, taking the grey edge off the otherwise blank tedium of the flagstones. At the windows, fading curtains were being tugged at by the insistent breeze that whistled past the Archives, completely ignorant of its infiltrators. Infiltrators who were about to become information thieves.

His dampness entirely forgotten, Ivan stared at the room with his mouth partly open. "And this is just the A section. My sister would adore this place…she'd find so much out from just this one room…"

Mia's voice was equally awed. "It's fantastic. So much knowledge in this one building…"

"Yes, and we're wasting so much time by staying here," Felix added irritably, glancing back at the way they'd come. "We don't know when the Mars Clan will work out there are people in here. It'll be much safer to get this done quickly before we get caught."

Isaac sighed, nodding in tired agreement and feeding a corner of his much-loved scarf into his mouth. "Why is the pessimist always right?" he said to nobody in particular, generally despairing at the way things always were as he sucked on the comforting material of his scarf. "Yeah…we should get a move on in case there are guards who come and check on things when we're busy searching. Uh, what sections are we looking in again?" he added, this time seriously asking the question.

Felix tugged the scarf from Isaac's mouth. "You _will_ get ill, and then you'll only have yourself to blame. Sheba? We ought to hide that thing the next time he tries eating it." He sighed himself, pushing his long, dripping bangs out of his eyes to see the other Venus Adept more clearly. "A for Acolytes, E for elements, and L for legends."

"It'll be faster if we split up," Sheba noted, a shard of graveness encased in the liquid jade of her irises. "But me and Isaac can't read, so we'll have to go with someone else. I get stuck after G, and words are even worse."

The more experienced Seekers exchanged glances, trying to work out how to make things work without causing too many problems for each other. Eventually, Ivan looked up. "Okay. Mia and Isaac should search in the A section, so they don't have trouble getting back to the entrance. Mia, don't look at me like that, I know you have trouble with directions sometimes. I'll search the E section myself. So you two can go and look in L," he finished, nodding at Sheba and Felix. Sheba seemed to relax a little.

"Fair enough," Isaac conceded, starting to head into the section and looking at the different books. "Wow, it sure is dusty here. Come on, Mia, let's look for acolytes!"

As the three searching on higher levels climbed stairs and more shallow, tiring stairs towards their destinations, Felix quietly despaired of his oldest friend. "How can Isaac just treat this like a big adventure? There's the possibility of us being in serious danger here, and he's just being as docile and naïve as ever."

"That's just the way he's always been," Sheba replied. "It's annoying, and sometimes he's a bit insensitive, but we can't do anything about it." She smiled up at her brother, trying to make him smile at her as well. "Felix, you worry too much about us. I should poke you more often to remind you about that."

"I'm…going to pretend I understand," Ivan said, observing the siblings as Felix tried to fend off Sheba's fast, teasing hands and strong fingers. _And they're the ones going on about sense. Never mind._ "See you later, then. This is E." He vanished through the archway into the room and was immediately stumped by the sheer volume of written work. Where on Weyard should he think of beginning? It was so big, and he might have shrunk in the rain…

By the time that Sheba and Felix had reached the L section, he'd almost given in to her constant, insistent and irremovable teasing about how protective he was generally. The shadow of a smile fell across his face for a moment as they entered the room; he didn't even realise it until Sheba poked him even harder than normal and grinned, making sure all her brilliant white teeth were bared. "Ow! What was that for?"

"See, you do know how to smile. You aren't all worry."

"I don't remember saying I was," Felix scowled back, grabbing onto her wrists so she couldn't annoy him with her hands as much anymore when he steered her into the room. "So…we're looking for legends here," he added thoughtfully, pulling his compliant little sister after him while he started to look up and down the rows of tomes, scrolls and other miscellany to do with the section they were in. "Mars are more likely to separate myth from legend, so I understand, but it makes thing difficult…"

Sheba allowed herself another wide smile as she recognised the look in her brother's face. _He's so difficult at times, but now he's just interested. Wonder if I can get him to smile again?_ "Um. There's a difference between myths and legends?"

"Legends are supposed to have been based on true happenings, myths are just fairytales for little kids with too much energy," Felix replied, struggling to brush all the dust off one of the slimmer leather-bound volumes which looked fairly promising. "Mariner…actually, it's probably that Revealer, isn't it? Well, they think there might be reasons as to how Mars was able to seize so much control over the world if we look in Mars legends." Turning a few pages and working out slowly what they were about before snapping the book shut, he couldn't help but be concerned. That had mentioned something about a falling star being passed between the Elements… "Hold onto this."

The flicker of stony distrust only lasted for a moment on his face, but Sheba knew him too well to be ignorant of it. She followed him around the blisteringly cold yet hot room, observing that same unnerved spasm time after time after he flicked through a book he'd then give to her. And she knew full well that he'd been getting closer to her the more of those thin books he gave to her. _Why do I have a bad feeling about this?_ she wondered. _It's almost like back in the Venus sector after Kyle, Dora and Jasper were taken. He just kept getting closer and closer so he could look after me…_

"Reckon we're done," Felix commented when they found themselves back at the entrance for the third time. "Alright, let's have those books…" he trailed off when Sheba pulled a face at him and clutched the books to her chest. "Well, don't blame me when you fall down the stairs and break your neck because there are too many and the weight unbalances you."

Sheba stuck her tongue out at him and got to the bottom of the first flight of stairs without touching the banister. "I never have balance problems," she said with pride tingeing her voice. "Runs in the family, too – you're always walking along ropes six feet up in the air without any problems whatsoever. So _there_."

"Just be careful, Sheba." He followed her down the stairs, noticing that they'd left wet footprints behind on their way up and trying not to be paranoid about it. "I don't want to lose you. Not when I'm surrounded by people I don't properly trust."

She reached up and patted the top of his head, giggling at his confused frown. "Silly. It's you I'm worried about. You might try to disappear again." It had taken months for her and Isaac to erase the worst of the memories about the last time her brother very nearly had disappeared so they could stay alive for longer. Judging by the sadness suddenly drifting onto Felix's face, he'd been unable to remove any of them. "Let's go. Isaac might have started eating his scarf again without us noticing."

They met Ivan struggling down the stairs towards C, even though he didn't have many books. He smiled apologetically when Felix shook his head and took half of them from him. "Sorry. I'm not that strong physically, and those books are denser than they look." He wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, strands of his saturated blond hair flopping down into his eyes. "Mia should've found something good, too."

"Really?" Sheba asked. "She didn't seem like that good a searcher when we pinned her down back in the Venus sector. Or when we were looking for that frame in the foggy dead city in the middle of the ocean."

"Mia…Wings…she's a lot better a searcher than I am, and I'm the one with the psynergy that finds things you can't normally see," Ivan explained as they went down the flight of stairs leading to the A section. "It's probably because she's an Angelical. They're pretty meticulous people, the few I've met. She's no exception, even if she can get a little…overemotional about things."

"Metic – what?" Felix asked.

Sheba was having trouble fitting the word into her mouth without more than one breath. "Met…ick…you…luss…" If the two of them could have anything more similar, it was probably the depth of their frowns. "Ivan, what's that supposed to mean?"

"…I don't think it really matters," he replied quietly, getting to the bottom of the stairs ahead of them and going to wait by one of the large columns holding up the ceiling. "We'd best wait here for them. Just in case they do get lost."

"Or if the floor hits Isaac," Sheba giggled. "Talking of which…I'll go and see him now. Here, you can have them now!" She handed her books to Felix, who arched his eyebrows questioningly. "I've got to tell him that you still remember how to smile!"

Ivan glanced up at Felix, who was shaking his head at his little sister as she dashed off into the A section to hunt for Isaac and Mia. "Still remember how to smile?"

"Sometimes giving away my emotions only has bad consequences," the Venus boy quietly replied, grim recollections coming back to the font of his mind to leer at him. "I find it difficult to smile when I don't know if those two are safe. Sheba says I have trust issues with people I don't know well. She's probably right. There are lots of things about me she's always right about." He glanced down at the Jupiter boy, the slight chill in his glance reminding Ivan of the few Mars he had met.

A series of loud, eardrum-shattering _bang_s ricocheted through the Archives, heralding the arrival of another unexpected visitor. Someone's footsteps on the stairs were more stomps than steps, sounding angry and demanding as they came further up and closer to where the two Seekers were standing. The voice that accompanied them was female, furious, and definitely not belonging to someone sympathetic for the Seekers' cause.

Kay liked rain in moderation. She hated it when it all came down in the space of a minute, sending slates off the roof over her tower and making her plants shudder with fear as if they could tell the storm was unnatural.

Kay didn't like Second Lady Karst very much to begin with, and the Proxian woman was only too glad to remind her that she hated Kay whenever they passed in the corridors. Kay very definitely loathed the woman when she came up to Kay's rooms and glared at her for giving her some proper work to do as well as being unable to attend the celebrations for the end of something that had happened so long ago it was practically irrelevant to the Seeker problem except in one factor, the man who'd been one of the ringleaders in the Uprising.

Kay detested being ill. And she'd somehow managed to catch a cold.

All in all, Kay, Angaran Third Lady of Mars, was in the worst mood she'd been in since she'd been told those three Venus brats had escaped from their sector. She'd already been incredibly cutting to her maid that morning, and had decided that if she couldn't go to the dumb celebrations she could at least do some research of her own into the reasons for the Seekers to exist. What had she managed to get out of those three Venus, executed at the beginning of last month, besides 'very little'? And then there was what she had ripped out of the Hesperian Seeker woman to take into account as well. Where to start?

"S for Seekers," she muttered as she got to the top of th stairs, oblivious to the two Seekers trying to stay calm behind a column. "E for elements, because that's tied into everything." Pausing, a word she was uncertain of left her memory castle and came to meet her. A satisfied smile crawled onto her face like a famished spider. "Of course. A for Acolytes."

Felix and Ivan froze as they heard the Third Lady's footsteps take her into the A section of the Archives. Terror seeped into Ivan through his damp clothes, making him shudder with sudden, horrified realisation. "Oh…oh no," he whispered. When Felix glanced at him, waiting for an explanation in ice-encrusted silence, Ivan could only reply in a vague murmur. "Do you know about Mars numbers?"

"No," Felix whispered back, worriedly sliding his line of sight towards the A section. _If that Mars finds Sheba and Isaac…!_

Ivan licked his lips; they were dehydrated from the unforeseen arrival of a Mars. "Two Mars together means an inspection – an inspector and a guard. More than two Mars means patrol. A group of Mars, Jupiter and Mercury means the incineration squad." He nibbled the inside of lip with nervous fear. "And one Mars, alone…that's one of the Lords or Ladies…" Needles of terror jabbed into his skin at the memory of the last time he'd left Mia by herself on a mission. "Oh no…Wings…" _She can't escape quickly unless I'm with her or there are enough shadows around for Cloak to work! That Mars Lady will…Wings sometimes drops her guard when she's searching!_

"Stay here and look after these," Felix muttered, placing his share of the books on the floor before heading towards the A section.

"What are you doing!" Ivan squeaked, unable to believe what he thought the Venus boy was going to do. "You can't mean to…that's just suicide! Come back – if you go you'll just – wait, you don't need to – "

"I am not leaving my sister and my best friend to get caught by some Mars bitch," Felix snapped over his shoulder. "You stay here. One of us at least has to get away. I don't care about what the other Seekers say, but as far as I'm concerned my sister's life is more important than some book." Something about his eyes silenced Ivan; inside was an element he hadn't seen properly before, a sort of wildness that made the Venus Adept look feral. Dark.

Kay had noticed the wet footprints during her search for material on the Acolytes. Now she trailed them, weaving through the bookshelves and across the bare parts of the room. Her mind was fixed avidly on one point that echoed with the thrill of such scandal: intruders in the Archives. And the little thrill only made her anger develop further, becoming hotter and spitting hissing chunks of pumice, as it came to her that it almost certainly wasn't Mars intruders she was following around the A section of the Archives.

The sound of voices huddled in quiet conversation drifted into her ears innocently, completely unaware of her presence and her mounting excitement and Mars fury. She trod quietly now, her boots hardly making sound against the floor except for almost inaudible, muted little _tap tap tap_ noises. She was fully aware of the voices gradually getting louder as she prepared to turn the corner into the next row of shelves and, hopefully, her unsuspecting quarry. Amazing. She hadn't felt such a rush of adrenaline and anger boiling in her veins since long before her elevation to Third Lady…

Jupiter, Mercury and _Venus_.

Kay curtailed her even more incited excitement and mounting rage. _So, all three other Clans are in on this, eh? Isn't that nice. These fools are very definitely…_ She stopped, noticing what words were written on the covers of the books she could see in the Venus boy's arms. _Acolytes. They're after stuff on Acolytes. These aren't just any idiots. They're Seekers._ Anticipation of what the possible outcomes of confronting them could be made her tremble, her gold circlet shuddering up and down on her brow. _And they've just walked into my arms._

The only warning the three Seekers had was the wave of air-scorching fire that rolled past them at lightning's speed, threatening to singe their clothes and leave their skin smouldering or charcoaled. Mia's eyes went huge with the unexpected shock of heat that made her eyeballs sting for days afterwards, her mind unable to grasp her pale blue psynergetic core and pour water over the ferocious attack. Looking up, the Mercury girl bit back a gasp (in case she swallowed any of the fire) when she recognised the figure in front of them, one of her arms flung out in front of her with her fingertips braced against the air, her hand still shimmering with the last pulses of her ruby-amber psynergy.

"Who's that?" Isaac whispered, apparently unaffected by the young woman's presence. "That's some fire psynergy."

"I am the Angaran Third Lady of Mars," the Lady replied, walking a little further up the row. One of her fine ginger eyebrows rose to just below the line of her circlet when the two girls drew back. "And you must be members of the Seekers. Venus really should be expected to act like an idiot though, if you're going to stay there like that, boy." She lifted her arm again, this time pointing a single finger at Isaac. His eyes had hardened into blue armoured shells, but she either didn't notice or knew he was bluffing a defence.

"It's nice to meet you," he replied politely, nodding at the Third Lady as he backed away to fall in next to Sheba and Mia. "I'm sure we'd stay longer, but we're kinda running out of time." _Th-this is really,_ really_ bad. She must be made of diamond if she didn't notice that insub-thingy._

"Don't worry about time," the Third Lady replied with a crafted smile made to be cordially and artificially polite. "I'm certain I can arrange as much time as you need to stay here. After all –" Her eyes gleamed in the light of the small fireball she now cupped in one hand "– I'm sure you don't mind a spell in the cells, do you?"

Sheba couldn't speak. _No. No. Captured. It can't be. That note Felix read back in the cottage. Questioning. Interrogation. Torture._ Dread brightened her eyes, polishing them with fear as she tried to draw closer to Isaac. _Execution._

The Third Lady dispelled the fireball and cupped her second hand around her first. From his position, Isaac could see the delicacy of the magenta flames that collected in her palms and slowly grew taller, eventually spilling out of her hands and onto the floor. He flinched, expecting the floor to be charred and blackened where the fire had touched it; he wasn't certain whether to be glad or intimidated by the fact that it didn't. How much control had gone into that psynergy spell?

"This will keep you out of the way until the guards come," the ginger woman said smoothly, smiling a strange, velvety, almost darkly satisfied smile. The plain gold circlet seemed to be glistening in the magenta light that now seemed to change into indigo before suddenly burning royal blue. "Flare Wall, box!"

The three Seekers bunched closer together when they realised what the fire was actually doing. On either side of them the bright blue flames extended upwards towards the ceiling, shooting up far faster than they could even think about running away. Another of the flaming walls was forming behind them, and the three walls met together at the top, hemming the Adepts in and leaving only one possible escape route – straight out, into the incendiary danger of the Third Lady of Mars.

In front of their eyes, the last of the purple fire left the Third Lady's palms and ribboned across the floor towards them, forming the last wall of the fiery cage the Mars girl was going to use to keep them in –

Something collided with the side of Kay's head, making her lose her grip on the enchanted box and sending her sprawling onto the floor. Before she could open her eyes something else, heavy enough to pin her body to the chilly flagstones and strong enough to hold her there for more than a few seconds. "Get out of there!" she heard a voice – male, leaning towards low, definitely reckless – yell. "Get going while I've got her down!" The pressure on her wrists increased as the sound of those three Seekers running past reached her ears. For a moment, she thought she heard that little blonde girl stop and murmur something. "Don't be an idiot! Move!"

Kay concentrated her psynergy in the muscles of her arm and broke free, smashing her fist into what felt like someone's chest. She lashed out with her second arm, pushing her attacker away and managing to scramble back onto her feet; her fingers already shimmered with the rich light of her psynergy manifesting. Her eyes tried to focus on her new antagonist but didn't properly see him until he cannoned into her again, flinging her back across the room and into one of the bookshelves. _Thank the gods I've been practising unarmed combat with Feizhi_, she thought as she climbed out of the pile of books that had landed on her and found her opponent again_. That didn't even land a proper bruise._

The sound of the door slamming shut alarmed her. _They got away with the books! Damn it!_

Whoever it was that attacked her had closed in again, this time with his psynergy pooled in his hands for immediate usage. Kay sprang back before he could reach her and felt the sole of her boot connect firmly with either his shoulder or his jaw. She put more force into the kick, making her enemy back off and giving herself time to risk dashing towards the exit and after the ones who stole the books.

"You're not…going…anywhere!" the youth bellowed through gritted teeth. Oh. Shoulder, then. He wouldn't be able to talk if she'd kicked him in the jaw. "Earthquake!"

Beneath her feet the floor shook uncontrollably, trying to catch her off-balance and send her back onto the floor so he could knock her out. Behind her she heard the bookshelves creaking, complaining about staying upright for much longer; her robes swirled about dramatically as she swerved and dodged back out of the way. _Ugh. Another Venus. Why the hell is there so much _vermin_ around in here today?_

He was already moving out of the danger zone, way out of the range of her more powerful psynergy spells to her unrepentant irritation. It didn't help that she almost couldn't see his face through the mass of long, dark bangs that hung in front of his eyes, obscuring everything except the line of his chin, stubbornly set and decisively unmoving, and the thinner, harsher line of his mouth. She thought she saw something flicker about his gloved fingers, and instinctively put all her weight on the balls of her feet to be able to dodge out of the way in case he had something to attack her from the front –

_R-Ragnarok?_ She'd heard of the attack, of course, but hadn't seen it used. Venus psynergy was never able, never _allowed_ to become strong enough to grasp that spell. And if he knew that there was the risk of his latent abilities being far stronger than she'd anticipated. _So I'll have to take this more seriously than I expected. Typical luck. I have a cold and I have to fight some Venus boy who's also a Seeker._

_Damn. Missed._ Felix ducked behind one of the bookshelves still standing after the quake had tipped most of them over, the documents crashing into the dusty floor. _If I don't stop her she'll be able to get after the others and that fire box thing of hers looked like it really would hold them. What am I gonna do to stop her?_

"Aren't you the tricky one," he heard the Mars comment. "But hiding won't do you any good. Rats get flushed out very easily if you fill their hole with smoke – and there's never smoke without fire." The crackle of flames greedily chewing away at paper made the breath catch in his throat – was she really going to burn up the Archives to get at him? "Not there. Okay, let's try over here, shall we?" He was transfixed by the sight of plumes of flame striking the wall in front of him, charring the edge of an intricately-patterned wall hanging.

_Not good!_

He hoped the smoke from the fire would screen his movements and made a dash for where he guessed the Mars' voice had come from, almost immediately crashing into the woman the moment he left his hiding-place. _Quick. Knock her out._ Springing back from her slightly he feinted with his right fist only to realise too late she had her uppercut already prepared for the moment his defence was wide open.

"Bitch!" he hissed as he reeled from the strike, his joints complaining as he got back on his feet and almost doubled over from the sheer concentration of pain in his stomach. And she didn't even look like she'd taken more than a couple of scratches from him.

"Well, it's the dog's job to drive vermin out, isn't it," she sneered, wrapping fire around her fist as she ran at him again. This time he was more prepared, but only just able to cast Spire and watch the sharp stone shards slice through her robes before her enflamed fist collided with his middle again. Through the misty pain he was able to just hear the Mars' voice again. "And it looks like I've succeeded in doing just that."

He tried to lash out, kick her, knife her, _anything_, as she came closer, pinned him to the floor and placed her index and middle fingers firmly against the middle of his forehead, her face almost nose to nose with his. Heat surged through his mind, at the same time giving him pain but also lulling him – no, luring him – towards the possibility of sleep…gods, such an idea was…intoxicating, like the way he could feel her thigh muscles tightening around his midriff made his mind wander down the wrong sort of path for the situation he was in… _no…not now…please not now…I have to…stop…her…_

Just before he lost consciousness he somehow managed to spit in her face. Kay sat bolt upright and distastefully wiped the boy's saliva from where it had hit her cheek with her hand. "Ugh. Talk about _disgusting_." Realising he had blacked out, Kay disdainfully wiped her fingers on his tunic and knelt next to the Venus' unconscious body. Grabbing his wrists, she held them together with one hand and concentrated. "Bloody hell, it wasn't that tiring," she muttered to herself when she heard her panting breaths. "Come on, Kay. Get a grip."

There were voices now, worried shouts and uncertain calls coming from the direction of the doorway.

Narrowing her eyes, Kay moulded her psynergy into the form she needed and looped it around the boy's wrists, her mind struggling slightly as she made the liquid amber rope knot and double knot for safety. "What do you want?" she asked crossly above the racket coming from near the door. "Help me with this prisoner, would you?"

Jenna and Garet appeared alongside the First Lady and Second Lord, both of them out of breath after dashing through the streets several times to relay messages and get people moving to find the source of the potentially dangerous sign now starting to evaporate from the cobbles. Garet whistled at the damage done to the room and how shattered his sister seemed. "That's some kinda fight," he commented.

"Be quiet!" Jenna hissed at him, jabbing him hard between the ribs as Agatio went down to carry the unconscious Venus boy back to the palace and the cells. "Are you ever going to act properly in situations like this?"

"Why should you care? You know I won't," he replied, watching Menardi flap around her old protégé as Kay brushed dust off her robes and found answers to the First Lady's questions fitting for the Third Lady to say. "Aw, c'mon Jenna, I'm being truthful!"

"You're being a pain," Jenna muttered. She frowned suddenly as Agatio brushed past them, the comatose Venus boy looking like a limp rag doll slung over the older man's shoulder. "Hang on, that was him –" she started, turning to face Garet again when it looked like the three regal Mars leaders were out of earshot.

"Huh?"

"You're so dense, you know that? Ugh, why do I even bother with you sometimes?" Jenna shook her head in friendly despair, grabbing hold of Garet's arm and steering him out of the building firmly. "Do you even remember when we were in the Venus sector?"

He shrugged. "A bit. Not much."

"You're hopeless, Garet. Do you at least remember those three Venus kids from the cottage?"

"Uh, not really." He grinned with a mixture of nervousness and apology. "You're not gonna hit me, are you? Only I wasn't really paying much attention then. You kept going on about some sword afterwards, but that's about it." Noticing another of the strange-shaped puddles left by the rain on the ground he made certain not to point it out to Jenna. The last thing he wanted was for her to get her mind back on the job _again_.

Jenna sighed with exasperation, her shoulders slumping. "Y'know, sometimes I seriously wonder why I even bother with you. I'm gonna go insane one of these days 'cos of your idiocy, I swear to gods." She didn't even detect her own inarticulacy until a few minutes later, when she hurriedly tried to correct everything she'd said. "That guy Kay was fighting? He was one of those kids."

Garet stopped to let the information sink in properly. "Wow. Yeeowch. I pity that guy."

"Yeah," Jenna agreed. "They've finally caught him."

"Kay's gonna have a field day with him. An' if he's a Seeker then he really is in so much trouble." He let out a low whistle. "I'm sure glad I'm not that guy. Sis is gonna be jabbing him for information like mad."

Jenna's shudder was involuntary, caused by the uncomfortable feeling of familiarity she got from that singular colour memory of being in that tiny hovel with the three soon-to-be-escapees. Why was it she thought she knew a Venus Adept whom she'd previously never seen before in her entire life? That disturbing feeling…all it did was unsettle her…


	12. Plans

Wow. I still live…I haven't updated in months, because of my horrible exams. I got a B in Maths and low As in Biology, Chemistry and Physics…but I don't have the time to worry about that. Write. Have to write. Must make up for lack of updates.

Yes, the last bit is related to the story. So read it carefully.

And for the record, 'bescarfed' is another of my made-up words. It means that someone wears a scarf. Three guesses as to whom that's directed at. (laughs)

* * *

Plans

It wasn't cold, but it was damp and uncomfortable. Relatively. He'd been in far worse places than a Mars cell before. Coping with this would be fine. He'd just have to keep his mouth shut if anyone provoked him, unless he wanted to live his final days with broken ribs. By now the entire palace probably knew he'd been responsible for knocking out two armed guards a couple of days ago as well as giving that Mars Lady a hard time in the Archives.

He slumped against the wall, feeling the comforting coolness of the stones seep through his tunic and into his back. _This place is worse than the smith's back in the Venus sector_, he thought almost ruefully when the room began to heat up again. He could never stay awake for long if it was too hot – he could even fall asleep just by sitting in the sun for more than a couple of minutes.

Sweat rolled down the back of his neck. _Gods, this place needs to cool down a little. Is there a fire underneath or something? These Mars freaks need to remember we're not all heatproof! I can't just go to sleep when I've got to work out how I'm gonna get out of here!_

"Don't stress so much, kid."

Felix glanced up at the woman sat against the opposite wall. "I told you, my name's not 'kid'."

"You're acting like one, I'll treat you like one. Getting so stressed don't help up against that interrogator woman, believe you me. Got me good and proper, she did." The woman sighed, leaning her head back against the raincloud-coloured walls. "You gotta be more careful in my place, gettit? She's gonna try an' rip you to shreds to get anythin' out of you about the Seekers. She's a real vicious girl, I'm tellin' you." The Hesperian fanned herself with a hand. "Hotter than normal here today. Guess you really pissed 'em off, right, kid?"

"Guess so," he replied, longingly thinking of rain. _Everything happens when it's raining. Meeting Isaac, and Sheba, and Dad being taken away, and even…even that…_

"Good for you."

For a while afterwards there was silence as the two of them struggled with the heat. There was little they could do about it, but what other choice did they have but to try and block it out? Showing the Mars that they felt weak was definitely out of the question. It wouldn't be done. Couldn't be done, in Felix's case; he was too stubborn to let something like that happen after he'd managed to keep that Lady occupied while the others escaped.

Something caught in his throat, making it difficult to swallow and painful to breathe. The others. _Sheba. Isaac. Did they get out of the citadel before anyone realised they were Seekers? Are they safe?_ His mind whirled in unspoken panic as images of the past whistled by. _Gods, Sheba…please be alright. Please stay safe. Please._

The Hesperian Seeker frowned at him, unsure of how to deal with this strange Venus. One minute he was angry and controlled, almost frighteningly so; the next there was something genuinely worried or scared in his body language, and he could do nothing about it. And all the time there was another element about him, somewhere beneath his skin, that made the middle-aged woman shudder. She'd met unusual people before – in her job, who didn't? – but nothing so near to _wild_ as this boy. The few Venus Adepts she'd known were all verging on the brink of being outright dangerous. None of them had been blessed with the inner, almost Mars-like ferocity this boy had…

He seemed to be blind to the fact there were Mars guards around judging by the way he brooded inside his inner darkness without speaking much. Recklessly ignorant. Hadn't he launched himself at the Third Lady down in the Archives to stop her psynergy trap, too? Just how much more rash could a person get? The Angaran Third Lady was the only Third Lady recorded anywhere on Weyard's surface for the last hundred years. Her terrible power was recognised even out on the Apojii Islands, and probably frightened the other Lords and Ladies. Yet this boy hadn't thought, hadn't cared for his life, and had attacked her to protect his squad members.

"Hey, kid."

"What?" It was snappish, almost like reaching down to pick a rose and grasping the thorns.

"You really better watch it," she replied, flicking a handful of her thin, multi-beaded braids back behind her ears, "up against that Lady. She'll just hate you even more than you deserve because you stopped her from catching your squad in the Archives. Bad enough you're Angaran Venus. Worse that you're Seeker." Her warning only seemed to just reach him.

But then he sighed, in an attempt to release some of his too-refined tenseness, a hint of pure sadness tingeing his breath as he leaned back against the wall. "Even worse that I met her when she was little, and talked to her." The barrier of dark hair swung across his face in unkempt strands. "Never got punished for that, but she'll remember." There was a sincere, opaline severity (or was it misery?) about him that said he wanted solidarity for a while.

"You _met_ the_ Third Lady of Mars_?" The Hesperian was awestruck and filled with a bittersweet horror that fascinated her. "And you didn't get punished…"

"Huh." Felix tugged at his collar with two fingers in a vain attempt to cool down; more dazzling, hypnotic heat surged up from beneath the bluestone slabs and forced a veiled mirage demanding his slumber into his mind. "Maybe I'm aptly named." He closed his eyes, unseen behind the dark shroud hiding his face, considering the tantalising possibility of drifting off into what would be dreamless sleep. _No!_ His brown eyes snapped open immediately, remembering what he was trying to do. _I have to get away. Have to find a way of not saying anything to this interrogator. Have to get back to Sheba. And Isaac. That idiot's probably eating his stupid scarf again._

The woman laughed, flicking her braids again as she shook with bitter amusement. "An' to think my squad was only caught 'cos of an unexpected patrol catchin' us. You went an' jumped on the Third Lady, an' you've met her before. Any idea as to how lucky you are, kid?"

"Leave me alone…don't need another shadow…" he murmured, still battling the urge to sleep with the only weapon he had left, sheer willpower and a scattering of old memories trying to beat back the hordes of welcoming sleep. "Lon' as she's okay…don' care…"

She recognised the signs of stubbornness taking its heavy toll on the boy and watched him for a few moments as he struggled against the ideas the heat was ushering into his mind. Whoever he was talking about was probably pretty lucky to know this kid. You didn't get that kind of control in a Venus normally; if anything, he was acting a bit like a Mars. That could scare practically any Adept into thinking twice about taking this kid on. He probably knew and had used it more than once to his advantage…

_Click_

"Hey, kid…"

_Click_

"I can't do much for the Seekers now. I'm on death row."

_Click_

"Make sure you get out of this hellhole, kid. Don't let that Third Lady get anythin' outta you."

_Click_

"Stay alive, gettit?" She looked up at the smirking figure of the Second Lord, twirling the jangling ring of aged iron keys around his finger. "Hey…be careful, kid. Luck ain't always gonna be on your side, y'know." Resigned, she stood up and exited the cell, listening to the grinding of the key in the stubborn lock with little emotion staining her dark skin. "Sure as hell weren't on mine."

"Shut up and move, Seeker!" the Second Lord snapped, nudging the back of the Hesperian's leg with his foot. Leading the woman away, he flicked a glance towards the new Seeker kid incarcerated in the cell and stifled a smirk. So this kid had given the Third Lady a headache to remember down in the Archives? Interesting. He looked like nothing. He hadn't even carried a knife when the guards had stripped him for weapons, let alone a sword. Agatio shoved the woman again at the memory of realising that the kid's psynergy was probably…

Well. It had been satisfying at least to see the old scars across the boy's back. A troublemaker already well-punished would know what sort of things might be in store for him. Not to mention that if all the Seekers were stupid enough to pounce on a Mars Lady in the middle of a spell, catching them would be made so much easier.

Felix felt the heat subside a few minutes later. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his bare hand as he sat up properly and was relieved to find he could concentrate again. _Now I can try to work out how the hell I'm escaping from this place._ For another handful of precious moments he sat and scrutinised the dull stone walls of the passage outside his cell, balefully glaring at the torches clamped firmly in their wall-brackets and contemplating what kind of havoc he could cause if only he could reach one. He'd played with fire before. It didn't bother him if he was the one controlling it.

Unexpected footsteps snatched his wary attention from the torches. Aside from the Hesperian Seeker and just now the Second Lord, there hadn't been any disturbances that…morning? Day? He wasn't sure how much time had passed, and the only light in the cells came from the torches. So. No window, nothing to pass for a weapon, and…_ Oh, please. It's that Mars from the inspection. Just what I need._

Garet clumped along the corridor trying to disentangle what was supposed to be the truth from the confusing bundle of information the First Lady had just decided to yell down his ear because he'd forgotten to listen to her again. Half of it was lies or basic inference. It wasn't the first time Garet had been incredibly glad to have eavesdropped on nearly every person in the citadel and to have an inspector as his best friend. Yow. And that word had started making him twitch slightly whenever he thought of it.

It was perpetually dark down in the cells, almost as if the small, high windows only allowed shadows through their bars to plaster themselves against the walls and even the brightest of sunshine was barred from entering. Garet didn't mind the dark, but he'd always found it a little…creepy around some of the prisoners. Some of them looked like they drank the darkness to survive or wrapped it around them in a protective cocoon to escape from whatever new horrors the Mars Clan brought to them as punishment. _That guy from the Venus sector…he's even worse than those ones_, Garet thought as he passed the safety of a torch in a wall-bracket. _The dark accepts him. Even if he wanted to get away, he'd never be able to. Like Jenna can't get away from her past._

For some reason he changed direction and headed even deeper into the cells, in the direction of the solitary cell used for those who were more than normal troublemakers. The prospect of solitary confinement always made the Mars Adept shudder; it reminded him too much about his sister's situation. And he couldn't even think _why_ he wanted to go down the corridor to the end of many people's road. _Jeez, this is not a good day. Jenna was shivery and acting even more like a normal Mars, Kay's got worse because she'll be interrogating that poor guy tomorrow, and Saturos wanted the incineration squad sent out to terrorize the Venus Clan 'cos of this boy…_

Seeing the Venus boy – _why'm I calling him that? He looks older than me _– Garet struggled, and failed, to suppress a chilly shiver of nervous apprehension. It was still there, that well-honed sharpness in how he looked. His hair was even longer than before; the unkempt curtain disguised most of his face and made it nearly impossible to distinguish his features, let alone guess what he was thinking. _Oh gods…Kay's really gonna have some quality interrogation time with him…_

Glancing up at the blocky ginger apparition, Felix scowled. _This was the one who didn't even act like a proper Mars. Stupid dim-witted idiot. His kind are even worse than normal Mars, thinking they can be friends with people like me when it was some Mars bastard who –_ he stopped, mid-thought, as a sudden, searing pain ripped through the right side of his head. _Damn. I forgot. Can't think about that._

Garet subconsciously got closer to one of the torches, unaware of the effect the flickering light had on his appearance. The few shadows on his face were more prominent, eating away at the side of his nose and hiding part of his cheek. All of the aggressive redness in his hair was amplified, making the spiky flame-coloured array look more ferocious – more of the typical Mars. No. Atypical. Most Mars tamed that rawness and replaced it with glacial 'charm'. In the guard's eyes the chestnut warmth surfaced again in the light.

Felix realised something with an imperceptible start. _This guy's a real Mars. He's unable to hide it. Like Isaac can't disguise himself properly. They're just too honest. They can't hide what they really are._

After a few minutes of glaring dislike at each other, Garet became uncomfortable. He shouldn't even be there. His shift was along the other cells now that the Second Lord had gone to that execution. This wasn't like him at all – normally he'd stick to his duties with an ear to the ground, as always, not wander around get spooked by some weird Venus Adept. And this particular one was weird. His behaviour was almost completely different to how it had been a couple of days previously, when he'd regained consciousness a few minutes too early and almost broken another guard's leg. Garet couldn't even see any venom in the boy's stance, only mortally cutting sharpness. "Uh…"

The Venus abruptly turned away and hit the floor with his fist.

"Look, I really…uh…I…"

"Stop trying. Mars don't talk to Venus." Well, the boy's voice was a prickly as ever.

Garet shook his head. "Huh, no point trying to talk to anyone these days," he muttered, almost as if slanted by someone. "Just trying to be sociable…"

"As if that's going to comfort me after everything your godsdamn Clan's already put me through," Felix snapped in reply, rubbing his right temple to help ease the pain that shot through it, harder than diamond and sharper than blades. "I couldn't care less if it went and put me to death. Better spend time in hell or purgatory than keep company with a Mars."

The Mars swallowed a hard lump in his throat. _He sounds…oh gods, he sounds like Kay. Oh, man, am I screwed…_ "That bad, huh?"

"You have no idea. Couldn't stand that Mars bitch getting any closer to my companions than she already was. Two of them hate your lot worse than I do." It was true. Nobody knew the full extent of Isaac's odium for the Mars Clan, and Sheba had caught it off her brother and her friend. "Now get lost."

_Yup, definitely Kay. Hint of Jenna, too. Not as much, though._ "Just thought you'd want to try surviving tomorrow without any more injuries than you've already got," he said with a dismissive shrug. "I'm serious! The Third Lady will kill to get information about the Seekers." His wary, nervous glance upwards didn't go unnoticed. "She scares the hell outta me all the time, and I'm her _brother_." Felix caught the Mars fingering a small cut on his lower lip. It looked recent, and hadn't fully healed. "Can't go near a plant pot without thinking she'll throw it in my face."

"Probably because you talk too much."

_Right, and that was completely Jenna…_ Garet folded his arms and leaned back against the cool stone walls, trying to work out what to say next. If only the guy wasn't acting like his sister and best friend –! "Guess so," he finally came out with, wincing at how lame it sounded.

"You need your head looking at," Felix muttered in reply, an image of Isaac's insane smile springing in front of his eyes as an annoying reminder of whom this weird Mars was acting like. "Carry on like that and you'll end up like a certain idiot I know." _If he's eating his bloody scarf I'm going to kill him when I get back_, he thought grimly, glaring at the image.

"Well…I just thought I'd…say good luck. You're gonna need it." Shaking his head in despair at his own inadequacy of speech, the Mars guard traipsed back down the corridor to wonder why the _hell_ he'd even started that conversation. _But…that guy's life is pretty screwed up if you think about everything else, what with the Seekers and that sword Jenna found and all the other stuff. I'm glad I'm not him…don't fancy getting killed just yet. _And then, as an afterthought: _Now I think about it, he was a lot like Jenna. That's just too freaky for words._

Felix watched the Mars' ginger beacon gradually fade into the gloom before taking his hand away from his temple. _I don't want to know how Mars think. Especially that guy. How many Mars go around trying to be friends with everyone?

* * *

_Brushing aside another heavy evergreen branch, Isaac pushed his way out onto the ledge above the packed clearing. This time there were Jupiter and Mercury Clan members in the congregation as well as the usual, depressingly silent Venus Clan, thrown in to be reminded of what happened to those who stood against the ultimate power of the Mars Clan. Isaac kept his gaze steady and unflinching, making his eyes seem oppressively sullen and canvas-blank. He'd been like that for a while, ever since…

"Good…we're not late," Seer whispered, his expression only a little less lifeless than Isaac's. Brushing pine needles out of his mop of hair, he took up position a little further back from the edge of the ledge and lapsed into silence, wrapping his fingers around the hilt of his light blade for comfort. At least it wasn't Wings with them this time. She'd be close to tears already, and the execution hadn't even begun. He nibbled the inside of his lip as he scanned the area for watchful Mars guards, carefully eyeing anything that passed for a Mars Adept before deciding it was probably safe.

Mariner reached out to grasp Seer's shoulder and snag the little Jupiter's attention. "Don't say anything for the time being," he murmured. "Isaac has to…adapt."

Seer nodded calmly. Of course…there was little choice there. Since the Venus boy's unexpected change of character – now morose and severe – it had generally been decided that something had to be done. And then this had come up, this extra little twist that might possibly be enough to solidify any trust Isaac had for the Seekers. Or for hope. _I just hope this works, Mariner. After we saw you dripping blood you've been saying some weird things._

There it was. Pine wood for the scaffolding again, cheap and common, worthless and practically only used for menial tasks. The henge looked even less well-built than it had the last time they'd been there, but it was obvious enough that it was built to do its job quickly and with as little fuss as possible. As if the death of someone was meaningless, something to be quickly forgotten. As if there existed no reason for the Mars Clan to care about how many people died beneath them, like the heavens sat above the earth and could only look down on it, never actually touching the ground and merely gazing at the wonders below…

The wind began to gather into more dense knots and whipped at the huddle of dull-coloured Adepts. Sensing a storm brewing, Seer scowled up at the dusty blue-grey sky and decided that he had to find something that would keep him out of the rain.

Isaac had found the face he'd been searching for in the crowd – or rather not; the young woman was stood on the other scaffold, looking slightly out of place next to the four scaled and armoured Proxians. He couldn't see from there, but he remembered the chilling look in her eyes back in the Archives. And he knew only too well that it mirrored the vicious, glacial glare that had belonged to the Second Lady when she'd burst into the cottage and arrested his parents. This was the one who'd captured his best friend. This was the one he'd have to hate if Felix was killed.

This lonely little girl with near-empty green eyes.

He couldn't see any reason to hate someone so alone. All she did was remind him of Felix before he'd been dragged out of that slump – all that darkness in the eyes, the unspoken (and probably unnoticed) pain…and worse, she was conditioned by society…to be perfect…

He shuddered with apprehension. _This is gonna be difficult if something happens to Felix._

"Isaac, get back from the edge or you'll be seen," Mariner said, only looking at Isaac absently before turning his attention to the scarlet fabric wrapped around his wrist. The gradual tightening of the knot over the past couple of days was increasingly difficult to ignore; fragmented pain would trickle past his barriers when he least expected it. _At this rate I'll have to untie it before the time comes if I don't want to lose my hand,_ he thought silently, yellow eyes impassively watching the scaffolding. _How many times have I watched something like this…?_

A woman's voice rang out, correctly cold enough to be cutting and aloof, soaring in its invisible cage above the heads of those on the ground. The three Seekers listened to the burning, frozen words shattering the calm, humid air, watching the near-silent proceedings. The voice continued to slice the air; it didn't even perturb the hooded woman on the scaffold.

Seer couldn't understand why the woman to be executed was laughing raucously underneath the hood. Shivering from disturbing uncertainty, he stepped back further from the edge and glanced warily at Mariner, who still watched from the background. The Jupiter boy swallowed a couple of times, trying to regain his normal behaviour and frowning with deep concentration as he waited to calm down. He wasn't Wings. He wasn't going to be affected by something like this emotionally. He wasn't…!

"Well. That clears up one thing," Mariner murmured, the faintest trace of a smile sketching itself delicately onto his face. "Isaac. Felix…won't be going out like that."

"What makes you say that?" the Venus boy challenged quietly.

Mariner tapped his right wrist with his left hand's fingers. "The only reason I can think of for that woman to be laughing like that is because she's met him. He's the kind of person that makes old Seekers laugh at the Mars Clan."

Nervously covering his head with his arms as he glanced warily at the thickening clouds threatening to pelt the land with arrows of rain, Seer frowned even deeper at the squad's leader. "Why's that? Because he's Venus?"

"No. Because he's _not_ pure Venus." Mariner noticed Isaac tense his muscles and the expanding wideness of the boy's sapphire eyes. "Didn't you ever wonder why Jasper rarely spoke about his family to us, Seer?"

The twin amethysts set in Seer's face darkened a little with seriousness (as well as the overcast weather). He spoke cautiously. "Occasionally. But Jasper was fairly quiet anyway, so I didn't really think much about it." Glancing at Isaac, Seer took a further step away from the edge of the ledge. He didn't particularly fancy being pushed off a cliff when it was about to start raining. It would make him even shorter.

"I don't think you're at liberty to talk about Felix's family without permission," Isaac said. "He has a tendency to get a bit touchy about that subject."

"You're just like him in some respects," Mariner commented calmly, turning to re-enter the forest and return to the ship. He paused for a moment, surveying the bare branches of the trees that raked the dismal sky with thin, wasted fingers as if begging for something, anything, to come from the steel-grey heavens and give the earth a little less hardship. "We'd best leave now before we're found. Come on."

Seer hurried on ahead into the forest in an attempt to avoid getting wet from the approaching rainstorm, his uncertain thoughts about the captured Venus boy clouded by his worry at the prospect of a storm. _Whatever it is that Mariner and Isaac are talking about sounds weird – too weird. It's not like I know much about the people from the Venus sector, but I'd better avoid asking outright about it judging by Isaac's reaction._

Their movements left no tracks on the cold ground, frosted over too hard for even the heaviest of people to mark the icy brownish-green land. Even the frost couldn't crack. Realising this made Seer shudder even more from nervousness – such cold could only mean that the Mars Clan's icicle regime…no…there was another word. But the fact that even the sky looked like one of Tundaria's fabled ice sheets that stretched far across the southern seas _had_ to mean that the Mars Clan would doubtlessly begin terrorizing the other Clans to regain the warmth it usually kept during the other months…

He yanked his green hood over his head and began grumbling under his breath when he felt something suspiciously wet _plitch_ onto his blond mop of hair. It _would_ rain, naturally, because he was there and it always went and flipping well rained whenever he went anywhere. Every single godsdamn time. There was a weather conspiracy against him; he _knew_ there had to be one. As more water was thrown out of the sky by the malignant, angry, bruised clouds, Seer broke into a run in another of his desperate attempts to avoid getting wet.

"More of Seer's rain paranoia," Mariner murmured to himself, gently shaking his head.

Isaac smiled, but not as widely as he used to. "He's got a good reason for it. He _is_ pretty small." _Right. Careful now. Let's see why he's been even more secluded since we came back from that empty place in the middle of the foggy sea._ Isaac slid his eyes sideways, regarding the Mercury Adept from within a protective blue shell. It wasn't like he even knew the man incredibly well, but he couldn't stand the way that Mariner's behaviour change had made Ivan and Mia…different from normal. Harder to approach. Jumpy.

After ten minutes of attempting to prise anything out of Mariner, Isaac gave up. The rain was being typically Angaran, and therefore seriously wasn't helping at all. It kept jabbing at his face and forcing him to blink, almost as if it was telling him to back off and stay away from the secrets. Aside from that, he couldn't see anything beyond the tawny irises in Mariner's eyes – almost like they were as liberally coated with impenetrable ice as the Mars Clan's rigid protocol.

Mariner stopped abruptly, almost camouflaged into the dismal background by the scything torrential rain that obscured the distant Adept from sight. "Wait a minute, you two. I need to tell you something about the next excursion." He waited for them to come back, dredging up the memory of a plan from the toxic swamp in his mind. The effort stabbed at his head far more painfully than the rain; he bit back a gasp of pain when he began to recall the finer, more intricate details of the plan, realising with unspoken horror that he'd been working on it only a week ago. A _week_. Was it that with _him_ free it was made far more difficult to remember anything without being punished for it by his own mind?

"Hurry it up," Seer muttered grumpily, glaring at the sky and yelping with surprise when water _splash_ed smack onto the middle of his forehead. He dripped gloomily. "I _hate _getting wet, and we don't have all day to wait around and let the Mars Clan catch us."

"They won't catch us," Mariner replied calmly. "We're too far away at the moment for them to find us."

"He's right," Isaac said, nodding at the scowling Jupiter boy. "Besides, we only just lost our resident pessimist. Just 'cos that happened doesn't mean you've gotta take his place."

"Shut up! We might be overheard, and I want to get back where it's _dry_!" Seer moaned by lieu of reply. "I'm _always_ like this when it's raining, anyway."

"Look, don't start bickering. It's bad enough when you fight with Wings, Seer. At this rate it'll be you who gets us caught if you keep shouting like that." Mariner eyed them sternly before rallying the needles of memory and beginning to explain. "In that letter, Jasper mentioned a set of runes found at the bottom of the Venus sector mines, referring to the Acolytes. Isaac," he added, turning to face the Venus boy, "presumably you've worked in the mines before, so you should know how to enter them easily. I want the four of you to enter the mines and bring back a copy of the runes for translation." _That didn't hurt as much as it might have. Good._

Isaac fed a corner of his scarf into his mouth and chewed on it, looking nervous and thoughtful. "Uh…well, yeah, I've worked in the mines, but it's pretty hard to get to 'em without being caught by a work gang or a Mars guard." He chewed harder on the yellow fabric, finding a little consolation for the fact that he'd found out nothing about Mariner. "Why couldn't you say that when we're back on the ship?"

"It's easier now," was the soft reply.

Seer heard something move in the bushes and span round to face the direction the unexpected sound had come from, one arm cautiously extended. "What was that?" he whispered, frowning. He yelped and drew his hand back when the rain struck it sharply. "Yowch!"

"You two hurry back. If there is anything, I'll deal with it," Mariner said, his hand reaching up to grasp the handle of his sword. Seer noted that the aquamarines glimmered eerily in the midst of the rain. "Seer. Relay what I told the two of you to Wings and Sheba, _then_ dry off. Isaac, just keep an eye out for anything suspect. You're good at that."

_At the moment, you're pretty suspect…_

Mariner waited for the two younger Adepts to leave before walking in the direction that Seer had faced, following the steady burble of rippling sounds that gushed through the still late autumn atmosphere. Eventually he knelt down and placed one hand on the frigid earth. "What are you doing following me around like this?" he sighed as the small blue creature hopped onto his palm and gazed up at him expectantly. "I thought I told you to stay on the ship…" The creature flicked its lobster-claw tail and bubbled more waterfall noises, sounding urgent and concerned, cocking its head on one side and regarding Mariner with the golden globes of its eyes. "…yes. It's getting harder all the time, now," Mariner told it, standing up and tucking the little animal back under his left ear. "The pain worsens every day that passes." He listened again to the rippling sounds, now quieter but still as concerned. "I know, Shade. It's difficult to keep the balance with _him_ loose, though." He stroked the creature's head with his thumb as he listened to its next bubbling outburst, now a little calmer and more affectionate. "Yes. That's right. The only reason I want those four to go to the mines is so there won't be any problems when I enter the citadel again."

As he began to follow the nonexistent tracks left by Seer and Isaac back towards the ship, Mariner sighed again. He knew full well what had to be done if he hoped to avoid the memory pain exacerbating into such levels that made it impossible for him to remember anything without being punished severely for it. Balance the elements…but not in the way many would expect.

He had to rescue the other aligned to the moon – to the dark…

* * *

_Clunk_. A warm sound against the frostiness of the season and the dismal weather.

"Thank you," Sheba said, reaching for the plain china mug and wrapping her hands around it, letting her fingers absorb the comforting heat. She was curled up on Mia's comfy chair in the galley, gazing almost longingly out of the porthole at the perpetual scenery. As the calming warmth permeated her digits and hands, Sheba risked a quiet, sad smile.

"You've been smiling like that a lot recently," Mia commented, sitting on another chair and sipping from her own mug. It was the one she didn't dare use when Ivan or Isaac was around because they'd probably tease her about it. It was painted childishly with fantastical animals and splodged flowers and trees. She'd made it herself when she was about seven. "You really miss your brother, don't you?"

The blonde girl nodded wordlessly, sipping at her tea and wincing when it scalded her tongue and throat. "Ow. Hot." She tugged her cloak closer around her shoulders and settled further back into the chair. "Mm. Yes. I do miss him. A lot."

Mia placed her mug on the ash table and looked into the gentle brown liquid as if scrying for a method to help Sheba. "I can't say I know him that well…"

"Nobody really does," Sheba pointed out, putting down her mug and reaching for Mia's to inspect the puerile painting. Her fingers traced the gaudy impressions of the fabled elemental sprites, a small, amused smile growing on her face.

"Guess not. He's worse than Mariner about some things. But," Mia added, fiddling with the ribbon holding her ponytail in place to tighten the sateen, "I'm sure he's okay. He's pretty stubborn about things, so I doubt he'll say that much about us to the Mars anyway. Besides, he's really devoted to keeping you safe, isn't he?" She eyed the younger girl as she inspected the mug further. "Um. Can I have my mug back?"

The Jupiter girl stroked the brash purple feathery animal painted onto the mug, her smile widening. "You made this, didn't you? It's even worse than Isaac's art, and he had to draw with sticks and mud." It blossomed into a toothy grin, giggles escaping from her mouth when she noticed Mia's reaction.

Brushing back a few loose strands of hair with her hand distractedly, Mia's cheeks bloomed into perfect deep crimson hellebores, the Christmas roses. "I – um – look, there's no need to be like that about it – um – just –" Her face transformed into a perfect robin's pincushion (only topped with long pale blue hair instead of the rest of the plant) when Sheba only laughed louder. _I'd better hide this mug somewhere and not use it unless I'm completely alone._

"It's okay. I can't draw at all." Sheba's smile didn't crack as Mia almost expected it to. "My work gang was always doing mending or collecting wood or something like that. Isaac and Felix were nearly always in a fight about something. We didn't have much time to be artistic." The word was new and tasted vaguely sweet in her mouth, like weak honey. Stifling her giggles with a hand, she pushed the mug over to the ruby-faced Mercury Adept and took a gulp of incredibly hot tea from her own mug.

"It must have been hard, living like that," Mia commented when her blush had relaxed into pale pink and only just tinted her cheeks.

"Very. But we never really thought about it much. We just had to stay alive." Sheba exhaled loudly, the sound mingling with the sheets of rain that speared the ground outside. "I wonder how the others are…"

Mia let out a snort of laughter. "Ha, knowing Ivan…he'll be complaining and running for his height. Well, you know what he thinks about getting wet. It's next to impossible to make him bathe because of his shrinking paranoia." She considered Mariner for a moment. "Mariner's been fairly distant recently, but he likes the rain." For a moment, she felt the colour surface again in her face when her mind turned to the bescarfed sunshine boy. "Isaac doesn't make sense about anything…"

"Except his scarf."

"Except his scarf." _And I think he flirts with me sometimes…_

"Wow, Mia. You've gone even redder now."

"What!" The Angelical Healer stood up and dashed over to the mirror on the wall. She flushed an even brighter shade of cinnabarine vermilion when she realised with embarrassed shock that what Sheba had said was true.

Sheba lifted one of her eyebrows and spoke in a teasing, sing-song voice. "Some-body likes I-saac!"

Mia whirled round and burst out with "I do not!" Frustrated with Sheba singing the phrase repeatedly, Mia tried to regain at least a _little_ of her Angelical's dignity by standing with her hands on her hips and attempting to look a little more stern. "Please stop that," she said with as much serenity as she could muster from beneath her flustered surface. "Can't we find something more sensible to talk about?"

"Some-body likes I-saac!" Sheba teased, a mouthful of tea almost going down the wrong way when she laughed harder at Mia's expression. "Sorry, but I like teasing people."

"I noticed," Mia replied, the red dye gradually fading from her face and eventually leaving it in its normal state. "Didn't you come here to talk to me about something important in the first place?" She went silent when she noticed that Sheba instantly sobered and swallowed more of her tea before looking out of the porthole again at the blustery wet weather.

"Yes. I did…" Sheba murmured almost inaudibly, recalling why she'd wanted to talk to the Angelical girl. "Mia," she said, looking up emotionlessly at the seventeen-year-old, "Is there anything that you're frightened of?"

Him_. Being trapped in the snowdrift, realising that _he_ must have loathed me from the very beginning. Losing the person that saved me. Losing my friends. Being alone in the snow. _Him_ returning to hunt again, like _he_ did so many times to Mariner. Losing everything to the Mars. Knowing that _he_ is out there, waiting…_ "Well, doesn't everyone?"

"I…I'm really scared, Mia." The girl's voice had become quieter, with what sounded like concern so instilled within it that it made Mia shudder subconsciously. "I keep having strange dreams and…and…and…" The two contrasting images appeared before her concerned jade eyes, the one fading so dramatically now that he was gone in almost a few seconds. She almost choked on her fright, but bit her lip to hold back the fear in case it escaped. _Felix…don't leave me…_

"Dreams?" Mia asked, genuine concern surfacing in her aqua eyes. A delicate frown furrowed her forehead as she glanced out of the porthole at the deadly rain army. "Why not try talking to Ivan? He's not named 'Seer' for nothing." She sat down again and picked up her mug, hoping that Sheba wouldn't suddenly start teasing her about her nonexistent painting abilities. "He's got precognitive abilities, even if he can't use them very well yet."

"Pre…cog…ni…tive…" Sheba's worry phased into confusion. "What's that?"

Mia halted, swallowing another mouthful of tea, and tried to think of how she could simplify the word. "Precognitive…well, premonition, really. He can see the future if he tries, or sense things that are going to happen," she finally said, after noticing that Sheba's confusion had only doubled with the second unfamiliar word. "Only _if_ he tries. And then he's not that good because he doesn't practise enough. But," she added, setting the mug down with another warm _clunk_, "he's probably the best person to talk about."

For several seconds the Jupiter girl didn't reply, her eyes skimming the surface of the table as her fingers silently traced the grain of the wood around each knot and every aging nail. "I don't think it's like that, my dreams," she replied eventually. "Besides…I was Clanless until recently, so I don't think my abilities are going to be like those of someone who's known they were an Adept all their life."

"To be completely honest, Sheba, I don't think there's ever been a person recorded who didn't know they were an Adept till they were fourteen," Mia pointed out, swilling what was left of her tea round her mug. "You're probably a special person. Think about it – you were found in the woods when you were little, you've lived in the Venus sector all your life since, you can make those two Venus boys open up when they're at their worst…" Draining the mug, she blinked a few times after putting it back down on the table. "Hm. Maybe you have otherworldly powers…"

"I don't think so," Sheba replied, a smile sketching onto her face. "Why me? I'm just some orphan…"

"Like me, Ivan, Isaac, and your brother. I don't know about Mariner, but he's always seemed fairly lonely." Mia smiled amiably at Sheba as she stood up and began to refill her childish mug. "Any orphan's in good company here. Even the special ones." She absently stroked the coloured splodges, her smile transforming into one far warmer than it had been as she remembered small things she'd enjoyed during her childhood.

"Even the ones who can neither paint nor hide the fact they like someone?"

"…yes, even – hey!"

* * *

"My Lady will be here in a very few minutes," the maid from Xian told Jenna. "Please, you may sit down, Miss Jenna. My Lady would be most unhappy if I let the friend of her brother go unattended."

_You mean she'd yell at you,_ Jenna thought as she sat down on one of the free chairs. The others were piled high with a forest's worth of wood in paper form, most of it with different-coloured seals dripping from each individual sheaf. _I think we have to sometimes pity the Lords and Ladies if they all go through this once a month,_ she thought with amazement as she gazed at the paper-strewn room, noticing that part of the Third Lady's table was spattered with black ink and various colours of wax. _And this is from October…because she got sick…_

"Miss, would you like a drink?"

Jenna snapped out of her reverie and looked up at the politely hovering maid. "Thank you, but no. I don't intend to stay long." _I'm meant to be on duty in half an hour, but this was the only time I had free to come and see Lady Kay about that Seeker in the cells._ As Feizhi bobbed a curtsey and rushed off into Kay's bedchamber, Jenna continued her perusal of the Third Lady's main chamber, her eyes drifting over the plants that shuddered at the horrific rainfall outside that threatened to knock slates off the roof of the palace. The healthy, green leaves and some of the smaller flowers hadn't wilted like those outside or in the palace's corridors; they were well cared-for and evidently loved.

"Jenna, this is unexpected. How can I help you?" Kay queried as she entered the room. Jenna was startled by the notable absence of the Third Lady's robes and circlet; in their place was a far simpler cotton shirt and long, flowing green skirt. She'd even left her wet hair loose. "I can't be asked to wear robes every single day of the year. Especially when I've only just recovered from a cold."

"Of course, Milady," Jenna replied as she stood up and bowed politely to the Third Lady.

"Spare me the formalities, please. I'm too stressed by all this paperwork that I've got to finish by tomorrow to survive people being formal." Kay shook her head, water flicking from strands of the orange cascade of her hair and falling to the floor in imitation o the end of a storm. "So, what can I do for you?" Her eyes suddenly narrowed. "If it's to do with those rumours, there's nothing I can do about that. It's not my problem."

Jenna straightened up, baffled. She flicked an errant strand of hair out of her eyes. "What rumours? Milady."

Kay eyed the inspector for a few moments before identifying nothing but honest confusion in the young woman's face and stance. "About you and my brother. They've been going round for weeks. I see they're all behind your back, too." Kay sat down on her chair at the head of her mahogany table and drew a sheet of paper towards her, reaching for the shaft of her pen. "People get suspicious when a man and a woman are nearly always seen together." For a few moments she surveyed the almost illegible writing on the paper before shaking her head and turning her attention back to Jenna. "Sorry if it looks like I'm ignoring you, but I have to finish up this paperwork before I interrogate that Seeker boy tomorrow."

"That's what I came to talk about, actually," Jenna said, still mentally reeling from the knowledge of the rumours. When she found who the source of those was, she'd…she'd…! Noticing that Kay had lifted her head up from attempting to decipher some of the paperwork, Jenna rapidly tried to ignore her frustration and talk normally. "I'm fairly certain that he's one of the three that escaped from the Venus sector."

"Ah…" Kay breathed, putting down her pen and flexing her fingers almost experimentally. "Excellent. What can you say about him?"

Jenna faltered, feeling a little unsure about talking to the Third Lady after such and abrupt change in her character. Now it was…colder. More Mars-like. Frightening. "…not much. I don't remember his name, or the names of the other two with him, but I'm certain that he's one of the ones who escaped."

"I see."

"I…remember that the other two who escaped were younger than him. The girl looked to be in her early teens…and something about the way she was close to the prisoner suggested that she was his sister, even if they looked nothing alike. And she had the Clanless mark on her…left arm. The other boy – he was…a bit docile. And he had a very long scarf." Jenna tried not to fidget her fingers as Kay stood up and strode gracefully towards the window, drumming her long fingers on the sill.

The Mars Lady turned her head slightly, her eyes glancing towards the inspector. It looked like the liquid colours of the stained glass window had knotted themselves into Kay's hair, producing an image of the woman that looked almost ethereal set against the typically grey early November skies. "Is that all?"

Jenna shuddered from the haunting, crystalline words. "Yes, Milady."

"You should go. Doubtlessly the Second Lady will notice your absence if you remain here too long." The Third Lady watched the inspector leave and waited until she was certain that Jenna was completely out of earshot before snatching up her pen and scrabbling for a spare piece of parchment in one of the dresser's drawers. _So. Clanless younger sister, looks nothing like him._ She scribbled 'adopted?' nearby, circled the word and drew a line to her first statement. _Another boy. Docile. Long scarf._ Next to that she wrote 'hiding mark?' and circled it, the sharp end of the pen shaft almost tearing through the parchment from the vigorous movement.

While she stood there, excitedly scratching her pen across the parchment scrap as anything came to mind about her impressions of the prisoner from their fight, the storm began to recede. The fall of the rain calmed, no longer an organised army that furiously smashed the ground and instead a kind shower that soothed the chapped earth. In her rooms, Kay's plants relaxed and waited patiently for their carer to return to look after them. The winter flowering plants slowly began to further unwind their petals from the first minute buds, as a surprise for the one who was not well…in mind…

* * *

Translation of the fourteenth text:

_When the world was young and naïve, there was peace. The four elements and two classes were even, balanced, the equilibrium of them all perfect. The perfection made the land peaceful; there were no wars between beast and beast, or man and man.__ Elemental power flowed freely throughout Weyard, tapped by every being in different ways for different uses. At that time, during that golden age, there was no need for the Lighthouses that now tower into the skies, and the four fabled mistresses of each element were not placed where they are now. It was not necessary for it to be so._

_Until the star fell._

_It tumbled from the skies one night, a bright beacon against the silken navy sky. Over the many years it remained on the earth's surface, it was passed between the elements: first, the maws of the Mars dragons claimed it and gorged on its power until it was stolen from them by the great fish that patrolled the early seas. Mercury held the star for a shorter time, unnerved by its strange power over the earth, and as time went by the fish and leviathans presented the birds with the star. Jupiter's birds cared for the star for a time before it became too heavy for them to keep in the air; they left part of their power inside it and let it fall to the earth._

_Venus found the star there; man, fascinated by the thing that had fallen to the ground, took in the star__, cared for it and raised it kindly for many years. The star came to love the element that cared for it, yet knew it did not truly belong there._

_It was many years before it was so that the element of fire came to clash with the element of earth to regain the star it had held for so long. The hunger of the element of fire was so great it began to affect the elements of water and wind, and soon after there was war amongst the elements. Eventually there was no true winner, for the star instead took its leave of the world's surface and returned to the skies, aided by the power that Jupiter's birds had given it._

_Consensus between the four elements was that the balance had to be kept in case such a thing ever occurred again, and so it was decided that the four mistresses of the elements – four of the first Adepts – would take care of it. They would become Acolytes for their elements until the equilibrium cooled and settled again._

_Yet even then each element would have to be balanced by the number of Adepts aligned to light and dark_

"Oh, you're nearly done with the fourteenth text! Brilliant."

The translator put his pen down and turned his head to face the aging, bearded man beaming over his shoulder. "Yes. How many are there?" He asked, making it sound like an afterthought on purpose. After all, the sooner he was freed from this task, he could –

"Twenty-four," the sage replied, still beaming as he bustled out of the small, well-lit room, trailing fragments of Alchemical notes. "Ten more to go. But, I think, there may be more texts coming soon for you to translate, so you'll be here for longer than originally planned." The translator could hear the old man begin his experiments again, the now too-familiar sounds of bubbling, whooshing noises doubling in speed and in number.

Before picking up his pen again, the translator thumped his fist on the table with annoyance. Not only was this text the first of Weyard's legends, one which could potentially jeopardise what he intended to do, there were even more texts than he'd expected. Twenty-four, and more to come. Typical. Just…typical. Well…in the end, what did it matter? If he was fast enough, then the hunt could start quickly and it would only be a matter of a few deaths. The two definitely aligned to the dark would have to go. Maybe that other aligned to the light as well…just to be safe…

Whatever happened, it would be soon that he not only destroyed the rift in his Clan but upset the balance in such a way that the Mars Empire would stand for even longer.

"Alex? You are working, aren't you?"

The Mercury Adept picked up his pen again and returned to translating the fourteenth text.


	13. Interrogation

Last chapter was over 9000 words long…that's just scary. It was meant to be short! Well, this one will make up for it.

Also, please forgive me for being so bad with uploading. I've been playing cello in the band for the school production of Guys and Dolls, and my A string snapped at the dress rehearsal. I've been playing on a three-stringed cello ever since.

Anyway, try to enjoy this new chapter. Oh, it has a moral, too: 'avoid general carelessness around dangerous Adepts'.

Interrogation

_Kay wasn't certain what was dream and what was real. The sheets and pillow beneath her back and head, they were probably real. Probably being the operative word. It wasn't that she'd drunk anything vaguely alcoholic the previous evening, preferring water or grenadine in the hope that she'd be able to fully concentrate on the interrogation. Not that she normally couldn't. Just…the way that Menardi kept making suggestive comments really pissed Kay off. She had to prove that __she wasn't about to –_

_Her back arched, pushing her closer to whatever mysterious entity it was that trailed its – his? Her? – fingers along the curves of her body, only stopping__ to let Kay relax for a moment before somehow extracting more pleasure from her strangely pliable body…she couldn't fathom out why she simply refused to be rigid, letting whoever it was manipulate her until she almost couldn't stand the intensity of the weird feeling building up inside her…_

_She decided that the entity was male; if she reached out and touched its (imaginary?) form, the shoulders were too wide to be a woman's__, the nose and face the wrong shapes, and the chest simply too flat. The lips that pressed against hers felt too caring to be female – Kay knew for a fact that most citadel women were complete and utter bitches or simply too frigid to kiss in the same way she was being kissed._

_The third, unidentified pair of eyes opened and gazed into hers._

Kay snapped her eyes awake and restricted the urge to sit bolt upright, instead lying in the pool of silk sheets in the hope of calming down. _Okay. Just a dream. Just another weird dream._ She could feel the fabric of her nightgown shrouding her body in a satiny cloud. _Definitely a dream. I'm wearing my nightgown now, and I probably wasn't during that…_ It was difficult to decide what word to use to describe it. _And I don't have time to think about it, either! I've got to concentrate on the interrogation!_

Sitting up slowly, she turned her head in the striking dawn light to survey her plants. They released their individual scents when they sensed her kind gaze stroking them, resulting in a perfume, a unique cocktail of aromas, that suffused Kay's slightly stressed mind and beleaguered body and helped soothe her spirit. Uncaringly throwing the sheets onto the carpet, Kay strode across the room and into the miniature forest, shuddering slightly as she searched for her watering-can. She'd be able to concentrate if she calmed down.

_Okay. Just calm down. Try not to think about it. Calm down._

Patting down the now-damp soil in the terracotta pots helped her relax. She could feel the earthy warmth seeping through the deep, soft brown soil and into her fingers; sometimes she liked to think she was in contact with the healthy growth of the plants – but if that ever got out – it would be like…like…like being nice to some Venus.

Some Venus.

_Damn._

How much time had passed since she'd woken up? Hurriedly standing up, Kay winced at the shockingly harsh late autumnal sunlight that pierced her through the normally protective layer of perfect glass at the arched window. Oh, no. She'd lost track of time completely – how many times had Feizhi tried to snap her out of it?

_The interrogation. I've got to be ready for that. That's the most important thing. I have to be ready for the interrogation. Seekers. Any information about the Seekers could help the Empire so much – I have to get that information – I have to – I must…!_

When she reached the now-tidy bed, she almost sighed with relief to see her robes had been laid out. These ones were some of the better ones – they were lightweight, without any stiff brocade or useless frippery like meaningless embroidered patterns. No armour, to lose even more of the weight she normally carried around so she could be calm in the knowledge of her speed when querying the more dangerous prisoners.

She dressed quickly, perfectly, not one fold of her robes out of place. The cream-coloured over robe hid the crimson skirt and shirt underneath, even as she strode towards her dressing table and reached for her hairbrush. With her hair scraped back into its usual thick, lustrous ponytail, the Third Lady sharply lifted her gold circlet from the lacquered table and breathed deeply for a few moments. Originally the circlet had felt heavy in her hands and on her head when she'd become the Third Lady. Now it felt more natural as it rested on her palms, as if it was fusing with her more completely that the day before…and the day before that…and on and on till when she'd accepted her new office.

To the average eye, the circlet gleamed with the deceptive, much-coveted power of the Mars Clan's Lords and Ladies.

"My Lady, are you ready? It is almost time for the Seeker to be brought here." The sound of Feizhi's voice and distinct Xian accent startled Kay from her reverie. "My Lady, I must give you a thousand apologies for waking you so early with my cleaning."

Kay let the corners of her mouth curve slightly into an enigmatic smile. "No matter. Prepare the room for the interrogation, Feizhi." For a moment she faltered; her fingers almost stubbornly refused to move so she could place the circlet on her head. She hmphed, shaking her head slightly to grasp control of her body again, and reached up with her hands, letting the gold band encircle her head again. The stripe of gold made her ginger hair, normally shining and healthy, seem dull and tedious. Sincere. Severe. Stern.

Even the look on her face changed into one that was cold and calculating as the Third Lady of Mars left her bedchamber and entered the main room. The plants shuddered at her frightening, almost _too_ Mars-like austerity, unnerved by the series of changes their carer went through every day as her mind coiled itself further and further around the Mars regimes and personality.

She didn't talk to people like she used to anymore.

Garet yawned and pawed sleep out of his eyes as he half-stumbled along the corridor, practically dragging his feet from tiredness. Sheesh, the First Lady didn't half overreact when he'd only accidentally overslept. He stopped for a moment to straighten up in case anybody passed him besides the prison guards; just 'cos he didn't have normal Mars standards didn't mean he had none at all. Back straight, even if his head kept attempting to droop, he carried on clumping down the dark corridor towards the cell containing the Venus Seeker. In the encroaching darkness, the sound the ring of keys made was all too loud for him. It felt like he was transforming himself into a target for whatever lurked there in the dark, planning how it would deal with him.

_Huh. Dark places creep me out._

By the time he reached the Venus boy's cell, he was almost too scared to step away from the protective, comforting glow of the torch in the wall-bracket and stood there for a few moments, thinking. _Okay, it's just some guy who happened to almost knock Kay out and is a Seeker. I've dealt with worse. Yeah. Definitely. He can't use psynergy 'cos of the binding that the First Lady cast on him. No weapon. I'm fine. I'm gonna be completely fine…_

…_why couldn't someone else have this job? Not that I'm scared. No. Not scared. Just…_ Garet glanced at the Venus boy in the cell. He was asleep, his breathing even. _Sheesh. Why'm I getting so worried about this? It's just somethin' I've got to do as part of my job._

The keys clanged against each other raucously, and the sound ricocheted around the corridors in impenetrable darkness for what seemed like eternity. Garet set his jaw and pretended to ignore the sounds of whatever lurked in the darkness of his imagination, letting the key _click_ in the lock and pulling open the door. It complained, but gave way. Licking his lips nervously, Garet produced the pair of handcuffs from a hook outside of the cell and tried to calm down enough to lock the Venus kid's wrists together. _O-kay…so far, so good._

Standing up as abruptly as possible, Garet nudged the Venus with his foot in an attempt to wake the sharp, thorny youth awake. "Hey. Sorry, but can you get up? I gotta take you to the Third Lady for interrogation right now." When the boy didn't even react, the Mars gave up trying to be decent to the Seeker and kicked him hard in the small of the back. "Get up!"

The boy sat up sharply, glowering up at the tall Mars through the screen of dark brown hair with what Garet could only recognise as pure disgust and loathing. He got to his feet unhindered by the cuffs (_Well, guess he's probably been cuffed more than once, judging by his back, _Garet thought, remembering with a suppressed shiver the sight of the lashmark pattern spanning the Venus boy's back) and glared at the Mars guard even harder, his eyes solidifying into angry hard brown stones. He let Garet lead him from the cell, his gaze unmoving from the back of Garet's unprotected neck, which prickled with sweat when the guard realised what the Venus was probably thinking about.

Garet made sure to take the back passages to reach Kay's rooms, knowing that Kay would rather have the Seeker undamaged by the rest of the palace staff. The back passages – most of them known only to the more 'troublesome' guards – were indubitably safer. _I don't care if people say I'm being dumb again, but it's not right for prisoners to get abused as badly as they can be_, Garet thought stubbornly, his face scrunching into an expression of disgusted contempt for how so many of his peers behaved. _Man, it's not like they're gonna be much surprised by this anyway. It's me. Of course I'd do somethin' like this._

Eventually they reached the spiral staircase that led up to the Third Lady's tower rooms. Garet almost reluctantly jerked his head at the stairs, indicating that the Venus boy should go first. The Mars almost sighed with relief when the handcuffed youth didn't even try to object, but couldn't help but feel frightened by the brambly, perpetual glare that reminded him of Jenna at her worst. It sure as hell wasn't a comforting thought, that…

The landing at the top of the stairs was flooded by morning sunlight; on the walls opposite the windows, the multicoloured mosaics depicting the brilliance of Mars Lighthouse's beacon gleamed like many-faceted, exquisite jewels. The colours – ruby, amber, a little emerald, a smattering of amethyst – glimmered, the handful of glass mosaics casting their pigment back towards the expanse of glass that was the window. Garet caught the Venus boy staring with even more hatred at the display, if slightly blinded by the unending torrent of light burning through the window. Swallowing, Garet knocked on the ornately-carved oaken door, glancing over his shoulder shakily to watch the boy transfer his gaze from the mosaics to the floor until he turned completely to stare out of the window as it blazed with light.

"Uh…is sis ready?" Garet half-stuttered when the maid with the weird accent opened the door. "Only I'd kinda prefer to get this over with quickly before he tries to bolt."

Feizhi bobbed a miniscule curtsey, glancing herself at the Venus boy as he seemed to sigh. "Yes. My Lady has completed her many preparations. In my home, it is said we must be most careful with what we do not know." She nodded again respectfully, holding the door open so Garet could steer the frighteningly unresisting Venus boy into the Third Lady's main room.

"Sis? I'll be back in a few hours for him!" Garet called out to his sister, wherever she was hiding. _Huh. Probably with those plants of hers again. Oh – yeah, gotta watch out for those begonias on my way out…_ He just managed to sidestep the flower pot, and heaved a sigh of relief once he was out of the room and the door was decisively locked behind him. _Whew. Well, that's the last I've gotta be around that…_dark_ guy 'til sundown._ He patted the comforting, warm-coloured mosaics before heading back downstairs.

Inside the tower room, Feizhi bobbed another respectful curtsey before speaking to the Third Lady. "My Lady, the prisoner is here."

"I know that," the Third Lady replied snappishly, glaring down her nose at the maid as she turned away from the elegance of the stained glass window and strode towards the mahogany table. She arched one eyebrow at the standing…Seeker. Yes. She could manage it if she didn't think of him as Venus Clan. Besides…it had a better sound when it came out of her mouth when she used 'Seeker'. "Hmph. I understand that your kind may be considerably uncultured, but I didn't expect you to not know that a chair is for sitting on."

The youth sat, his face still hidden behind that disgustingly tangled mat of bangs. The Third Lady eyed him emotionlessly, checking carefully for any sign of…no, there were none. He wouldn't be able to turn violent up here at the eye of her power.

Wordlessly, she slid a knife from one of her wide cream sleeves and flicked it; its keen point jammed itself stubbornly into the table. "I believe this is yours," the Third Lady said smoothly, briskly striding towards her own seat at the other end of the table and settling herself into it quickly. "However, even taking it would be pointless here. Any Mars Adept could easily melt it down to nothing, Seeker."

His head moved, his eyes probably registering the presence of the knife behind the knotted dark brown veil of hair. The Third Lady frowned; she'd hoped for more of a reaction than that. A glare, perhaps? Outrage? Anger, refined like sugar?

Not that it mattered. There was always more than one way to skin a cat. Lady Menardi had demonstrated many methods to her during the time the Third Lady had spent as her protégé. This was going to be a most _interesting_ interrogation. She'd have to count the number of methods she used…

The Third Lady propped her chin on her left hand, noting down the boy's lack of typical reaction on the rectangular sheet of paper beside her. Placing the quill back on the table, she touched the pads of her fingers together and observed the boy over the little tent her fingers made. He didn't even appear worried about anything. Almost as if he was…pretending. Pretence. Which of those Venus Clan Seekers had it been that had been the same…?

_Of course. The one so badly-injured from the torture he could hardly speak afterwards._ Jasper.

She'd dealt with that easily enough, though. She'd got something from that stubborn man. And this was just a boy. Yes, just a boy, about…oh, about her age? Eighteen? Nineteen? "Well. Base threats aside, the way this is going to work is that I ask you questions and you tell me the answers. Understand?" She could have snarled at his lack of reaction. "Let's start with your name, shall we?"

"Like I'd tell some Mars bitch after what your Clan's done," the boy hissed in reply.

"And precisely what would that be?" she replied pleasantly, hooking into his answer with her claws of thought and not letting go. "We're used to looking into complaints."

The boy appeared to think for a moment or two. "The weather. It's too hot for late autumn because of your Clan."

_Oh, so he's going to play smart, is he?_ "I'm sorry, but there's not much we can do about that. You'd have to have a word with the Jupiter and Mercury sectors to do anything about the temperature." _Two can play at that little game, Seeker boy._ "I'm sure I can help with any other complaints though, if you answer my questions nicely."

"Your lot's going to kill me anyway," he replied sullenly, as if speaking some unavoidable truth. The Third Lady caught an undertone of general pessimism in his voice. "What makes you think I'll go along with what some spoiled bitch wants? You Mars even sell out the happiness of your own kind."

She pounced on his last phrase and scribbled it down in the blatant silence that followed. _Yes. That sounded as if he knew first-hand about the…'happiness' of the Mars Clan. What should he know? Just some Venus Seeker couldn't understand the true happiness our Clan enjoys under the Empire._ Inside her castle of memory, something flickered alive like a tiny candle flame. _But…that doesn't rule out the possibility of him not being…pure Venus…_

"Is there anything else you want to tell me before we start this discussion properly?" she queried politely, setting the goose-feather shaft down again and quietly watching the boy across the table.

He looked up at her directly.

"_Milady? Excuse me, Milady, but have you seen a little girl?"_

The Third Lady froze in place, not hearing what the Venus boy was actually saying but remembering that tiny, unimportant memory from the Venus sector eight years ago. Why was it coming now – oh no – oh Gods – it was –

"_My sister…she's my little sister, and I've been looking for her everywhere, Milady."_

– impossible! But at the same time she recognised the obvious forced formality in speech and the look…that bright fire kindled…

"…_I've got to find her!"_

The Thir – Kay stood up abruptly and strode towards the cabinet where her notes were kept. There it was, the hastily-scribbled lines and circles of the reminder she'd written after Jenna had left the day before. Clanless younger sister…looks nothing like him. She had to remember more about that fragment in the Venus sector…what had happened after that? Oh, yes, the boy with the scarf… _Didn't he say something?_ Kay thought. _He…what was it he said…?_

She heard the vague, slightly blurry sentence spoken in her head and turned suddenly, her body silhouetted against the light streaming through the stained glass. She righted herself, touching a finger to the gold circlet on her brow before gazing evenly into the Venus boy's now-visible eyes. Yes. Of course.

"Your name is Felix."

Under the table, Felix's nails cut into the palm of his hands while he glared even harder at the Third Lady of Mars. Of course she remembered.

In the almost-deserted living quarters in the Venus sector, the air was syrupy, sticky and almost congealing in the shockingly hot weather. It even _tasted_ thick and sluggish on Jenna's tongue as she paced along the dirt track between the lines of what passed for hovels and the occasional tumbledown cottage that had obviously seen many better days. No wind, either. It made her red-pink armour feel heavy and burdensome, and that almost never happened.

Noticing a crèche of tiny children, overseen by a near-toothless woman who couldn't have been more than thirty or maybe forty, the inspector averted her gaze from what lay on the ground near her feet to what she knew lay ahead. The minute she got to the shade of the trees she'd be able to wipe off the sweat that threatened to roll down her face. _How can I call myself a Mars if I can't even handle temperatures like this?_ she thought, her boots making clean impressions on the dirt where she trod. _Really, it's good that I'm alone. Otherwise…_ The thought of public humiliation in front of squad-members made her mind shiver. The shame of being told she didn't deserve to be Mars, after all these years spent proving that she wasn't just some pathetic half-blood – _Hang on, only a few people know that. I should stop this…pointless thinking._

When she reached the skeletal shade of the empty-branched trees, Jenna rubbed her eyes to remove any traces of tiredness. Another thing it was impossible to show to the lower Clans. Righting herself, she tucked the end of a bang behind her ear and eyed the pile of ash and rubble that had once been a little hovel housing six people. When that colour memory flickered in front of her eyes she shook her head to dislodge it from her thoughts. She hadn't gone there to remember things of no importance. Of course, the fact that a memory of three…Venus Clan…was shown in perfect pigment, every tone and shadow as dingy and pitiful as it had been at the time, was one of those things she could hardly ignore. It was so _irritating_ at times she had to smack the wall of her room to release the build-up of anger she got from trying to work out why it was a colour memory…!

She stood at the edge of what had been the doorframe. A pair of withering charcoal stumps remained there as a reminder of entering and finding three teenagers inexplicably passed out on the floor. One of whom had talked about…blue chickens, according to Garet, that idiotic lump of a guard…yes…yeah, that dimwit…

Pulling on her leather gloves, the inspector began to sift through the various piles of ash that represented where rooms had been. There were tiny pottery fragments, crudely made but obviously well-used, a shard of unmelted pewter (she found the rest of it fused together in a slightly domed circle under another ash pile), scraps of miraculously undamaged cloth…nothing of real importance. Nothing to use as a clue to condemn the Venus Clan of conspiracy and another Uprising.

Jenna was preparing to leave the mounds of cinders and charcoal when something caught her attention that she'd missed previously. Kneeling down next to the smallest heap, she brushed aside the ashes and extracted what didn't look like anything recognisable underneath all the ash. She dusted it off as she stood up again and frowned at the small thing. Surely something made completely of cloth couldn't have survived the incineration squad setting the cottage aflame.

The thing seemed to have stubby arms and slightly longer legs, with a head that (now she could see it clearly in the scorching sunlight) had a scrap of patchwork fabric sewn to it roughly, almost like hair. There was no mouth, but it had a pair of miniscule brown buttons to pass as eyes. It fitted very neatly into the palm of her hand. _A…doll? Elements, how could this survive the incineration squad?_

The more she looked at it as she strode back through the Venus sector towards the citadel gate, the more the little thing seemed to look like a doll. The rough stitches made it obviously homemade, almost…endearing. Somebody had made this with love in their heart. Somebody had genuinely cared for each and every stitch that punctured the material and kept it together, the inexpert seams strong for all they were crude.

Pausing in a spot where she would be hidden from any nosy passers-by, Jenna held the doll up to the light and sighed with tamed exasperation. To think that in a Clan considered lower than any other in Angara and Gondowan there was such care for others that the highest of the Clans could never dare show to anybody…how ironic…

The buttons seemed to regard her with alien affection when they caught the light. Shaking her head irritably, Jenna dismissed the thought and pulled the doll back closer to her. _Hm_. Her fingers, still gloved, stroked the fabric and sent an almost unnoticeable thrill of unexpected nostalgia through her otherwise completely controlled body. Nonetheless, when she tried to recall anything to do with toys in her childhood Jenna found nothing but the harsh spat words from the disproving neighbours she'd suffered from in the Mars sector. No toys she could remember…so why in the Gods' names did she have this feeling of innate familiarity with the palm-sized rag doll? _Strange._

She filed it away in her head to remember to look into it, maybe ask the Second Lady to help her, but stayed for a while in her tiny alcove beneath the citadel wall to gaze at the doll. Every time she touched it, that little rush of familiarity would return. Every single time. _Well…it's not as if I have all day to spend here, looking at this doll,_ Jenna reminded herself, thinking of the next job on her self-made timetable for the day. Before she strode away into the citadel towards the Jupiter sector, she slid the precious little doll into her breastplate. After all, the Mars Clan was exceptional at keeping things hidden. Anything. From plans to hate to adoration.

The doll nestled quietly underneath Jenna's breastplate, comfortable and apparently not out of place at all.

The hottest part of the day passed slowly – torturously in the Third Lady's tower. Within her bedchamber, Kay glanced out of the window and decided it was time to check on that Venus prisoner again. After hearing his name spoken, he'd transformed into a block of unmovable, speechless stone that wouldn't be moved and couldn't be manipulated into moving, either. Irritated by the lack of cooperation, Kay had cuffed him to the chair and left him to sit in the heat, with the sunlight glaring at him through the windows at its most potent and boiling, for a few hours. Maybe he'd be considering talking now, after steaming for a while.

She flung back the silk sheets and slipped on her normal, lighter clothes, a long, green skirt with a white shirt and her softest slippers, carelessly putting the cream over robe from earlier on top of her decisively un-Mars-like clothes. Tying back her hair into its stern, ponytail, she reached for the circlet again and faltered again before grasping her consciousness and placing it elegantly on top of her head. There. Much better.

Pushing open the door, the Third Lady made little sound on the floor with her slippers as she entered the room and turned to observe the Seeker.

He was asleep.

Well, _that_ was helpful. All she'd learned was that he fell asleep when it was hot.

She decided it was safe, with her in the room, to unshackle him from the chair and leave him handcuffed normally instead. As she selected the keys efficiently, expertly, she couldn't help but eye the boy irritably, mentally cursing that he wasn't awake and hence unable to talk at the moment. When she finished, his hands were cuffed properly but they lay in his lap loosely.

Exhaling through her nose, the Third Lady pulled the circlet off her head and sat in her chair at the end of the table opposite the Seeker, pushing the circlet towards the middle of the table. In the sunlight, it was immeasurably attractive in terms of colour and general beauty; in the citadel, anything of worth was considered wonderful. Especially metals such as gold, with its singular shine and perfect malleability. Kay drummed her fingers on the table as she glanced over her few notes from the time she'd spent trying to make the boy talk, unsuccessfully.

The light toyed with Kay's ginger hair as she rose from the chair and walked towards the cuffed boy. Now that she could see a little of his face behind that dark hair, she might as well try to recognise him by learning his facial features. So: long hair, dark brown, same colour for his eyes, normally in a scruffy ponytail. Very sharp features – long nose, high cheekbones, sharp chin. Thin mouth. No…hm. What _looked_ like a thin mouth, but wasn't. What else? _Ugh, the rest of his face is hidden by all that hair…_ Kay thought, clenching her fists. _I'll need to wash myself so thoroughly tonight to get rid of all this Venus Clan scent, or Menardi's teasing will be even worse._ Steeling herself, Kay reached out reluctantly with her fingers and lifted some of the bangs on the left of the Seeker's face. _Hm. He looks almost…hollow. _She dropped the strands of slightly greasy hair and reached across his face for the clump of tangles on the other side.

Her emerald eyes widened and her jaw clenched, and she almost let the Seeker's hair fall back into its original place when she saw what was on the boy's right temple. _S…so that's why his hair's so long. Ugh. I'll need more than just to wash properly this evening. This boy…_ She visibly shuddered this time as she dared to permit her hand to actually touch the Seeker's face, her fingers brushing the skin warmed by the heat until they rested on the scars at the boy's temple, tracing the pattern as many times as she thought her mind could bear.

There it was. The terrible symbol that was still feared even a hundred years since the Uprising. But not in its usual incarnation. It didn't…look as if it had been branded onto his skin properly when the boy was young. The main circle, yes…the line cutting through it, no…that looked as if it had been…well, _slashed_ onto him later…

Suddenly something hard and cold was pressed very hard against the back of her neck, and with a shocked indrawn hiss of breath she was yanked closer to the Venus Seeker by the chain that rested against her neck. _Gods damn it! He was faking! _Kay almost released a suppressed sound of pain, but bit her lip and forced it to stay in as the chain pressed even harder and her head was forced onto the Seeker's shoulder. _Bloody hell!_

"Bit close, aren't you, Milady?" Felix commented coldly, feeling the almost completely hidden spasm in the young woman's body as the Mars Lady stiffened momentarily before remembering she was supposed to always remain in control. "Aren't you meant to be able to tell when someone's about to attack you?"

"Let me go," Kay replied evenly through gritted teeth. The position she was could hardly be described as comfortable. "Unless you want a hole burned permanently into your back, you Venus scum –"

She went still when she felt the chain's tension against her neck relax slightly, only to let his fingers shift the edge of her robe aside and then move the collar of her shirt as well. It was barely a movement, hardly anything she couldn't have stopped, but she somehow – somehow – why wasn't her body responding to what her mind was yelling at it? What was the Seeker going to do – she didn't know – and she couldn't move!

Something touched her skin where he'd moved her clothes slightly aside, just below and to the right of her collarbone. Kay didn't know what; she couldn't see from the position she was in. Whatever it was became slightly wet, sliding across a small patch of her unmarked skin until – _oh Gods, he's biting me. He's actually – agh…_ Kay tensed again as she felt the crowns of his teeth press harder into her skin, seriously biting to hurt, _damn him to hell!_

He released her eventually, after what was only minutes but seemed to be aeons of time spent purposely biting the Mars Lady's skin. Disgusted, Kay yanked her collar to cover where she thought the mark was, her anger mounting at the loss of her dignity – forced to be still by some _Seeker_, some _Venus whelp_ – as she turned suddenly away from the _thing_ and tried to regain what little she had left of her composure. Felix kept his eyes impassive. He didn't want to provoke her further, so when she met his gaze with her own disgusted one he made certain he wouldn't…irritate her too much. But it was hard. When there was some Mars bitch just _there_, it wasn't as if it was possible to ignore all the pain of the years –

The anger and clear hatred welling in his eyes was enough to make Kay's thread of patience and calm snap completely and cleanly into two –

Felix was only aware of something smashing into his face and shattering into sharp fragments, several of them digging into his face and making little rivulets of blood trickle down his left cheek. The echoing sound of the impact rebounded around the inside of his head, making him deaf to whatever it was that the Mars shouted, her overwhelming personal anger and detestation for any being like him blatant.

Kay slammed the door to her bedchamber shut and bolted it, rushing through her pet jungle towards the bathroom and the full-length mirror. Bolting that door shut too, she stared at herself in the mirror as it shimmered in the tawny sunlight of early evening. She breathed heavily, licking her lips as she dropped her robe to the floor and immediately reaching for the collar of her shirt, before heaving it over her head completely in disgust, remembering that the Venus thing had touched it. He'd touched _all _of her outer clothes. Kay almost ripped them off to get rid of the fresh, raw memory of being held captive by some mere Venus Clan member – some disgusting piece of Seeker _vermin _she should have crushed before he became even more dangerous. She stood on the bare flagstones in her underwear, horrified, staring at the reflection of her body in the mirror – especially at the vivid, crimson bruise just under her collarbone.

Her face screwed up in hatred as she recalled what those supposedly impassive eyes had been gloating at her. _Fair exchange is no robbery._ Some exchange! She'd had to waste an empty flower pot on that Venus bastard – at least it had left blood as a little reminder of what the Mars Clan was perfectly able to carry out –

She calmed a little, remembering the sight of the mark on the boy's right temple that was enough to condemn him as soon as it was reported.

Slashed circle.

_Oh, tomorrow's interrogation is going to be…interesting._ A twisted, sly smile somehow changed her entire face as she thought about it. For a few moments she almost became the First and Second Ladies, something she'd wanted to avoid.

But really. _Slashed circle._


	14. Stardust

I'm having server issues at the mo, so even if I upload I can't add separation lines. Sorry if it causes any confusion. Stupid server. ¬_¬

Jenna's comment about reinforced glass is something I made up, I think, because I've never heard of reinforced glass – or double-glazed mirrors, for that matter.

______________________________________________________________________________

Stardust

Even with Ivan's jars of lightning making it possible to just see what was in front of them, the land mist was all-enveloping and shrouded each of the four Seekers so thickly they could only distinguish who was who from voice or rough size. Ivan had smacked into Isaac's back several times already, and wouldn't have been surprised if his nose was squashed out of recognisable shape. Rubbing his forehead from another impact (this time with a tree), Ivan sighed as he tried to catch up with the other three Adepts. _Fog's just as bad as rain. It's still shrinking weather!_

"Isn't this a longer route than yesterday and the day before?" Mia asked, peering ahead into the grey haze to discern anything vaguely recognisable. "I'm sure we took a different route…"

Sheba's voice, appearing suddenly beside Mia as she almost tumbled over a devious tree root, was only slightly comforting. "This is the same route, but the fog makes it harder to move around. So it takes longer." Mia was certain she heard the younger Jupiter giggle slightly. "Besides, it's not like we have to worry about rushing. Mariner never said when we had to be back by."

Mia held up the lightning jar and frowned at Sheba's teasing grin. "What's so funny about that?"

"Doesn't that give you more time around –?"

"Are you two okay?" Isaac called back from the front of the struggling, almost dismembered line after hearing a loud _clap_ping sound emanate from the area where the two girls were. "Hey, we don't wanna get lost here, y'know. Let's get going."

Sheba was still smiling cheekily when Mia removed her gloved hand from the Jupiter Adept's mouth and flushed even more crimson, the bright red clashing with her pale skin and blue hair. Embarrassed by what Sheba _would_ have said, the Angelical Healer brushed her skirts distractedly with her free hand as she picked her way through the forest after the diminishing lights held by Ivan and Isaac.

The Venus Adept's face was even harder to read than usual, Ivan found when he ended up walking alongside Isaac. He'd come to recognise by now the mask Isaac wore when concerned about something, and knew to be wary in case what he thought of as the 'other Isaac' surfaced – the almost scary, emotionless and calculating one, the one too alike the Mars Clan for Ivan's taste. Ivan had seen the mask too many times since Felix's capture; that, in combination with Mariner developing some distant strain of amnesia recently that meant he had to write everything down if he didn't want to forget it, made the Jupiter boy feel more unnerved and also more suspicious than normal. _I don't know what I dare trust anymore. Mia's alright, but Mariner's freaking her out more and more these days, and Sheba's spent so much time around Isaac since her brother disappeared I don't want to risk talking to her in case…_

"Somethin' up?"

Ivan almost jumped three feet into the air. _Huh, first it's shrinking weather, then people creep up on me!_ "D-don't do that, Isaac." He shook his blond mop, pulling a disgusted face when drops of water flew out. "I'm just…well, I've never been down a mine before." _Please let it stall him, please let it stall him, please let it stall him…_

Isaac's cheerful smile was exactly as it had been before the excursion into the citadel, making Ivan purposefully calm down. "I just hope me and Sheba can remember the route through to the bottom. It's been a while since I've done that." _Been a while since I've had to be so careful around this guy, too…but…much as I like Mia and Ivan, I sure hope we don't run into anythin' that Felix will kill me for when he gets back. Let's just hope all that stuff got dug up in the time we've been gone from the sector…_ Another thought hooked into his consciousness, one that had been irritating him for a bit. He glanced sidelong at Ivan. "What d'you reckon's up with Mariner, anyway?"

"I don't think I _want_ to know," Ivan replied. _Not good. He's asking _questions_ now. And he's good with questions. At least he can't get through my head like he can Mia's from time to time._ The image of Mariner, right wrist and hand dripping with garnet-coloured blood, suddenly flashed across the inside of his eyes. He shuddered. "Something's been up with him since I met him. Nobody knows his real name, for starters."

_I gathered that. But I'm not interested in that, Ivan._ "But he's just gone and forgotten loads of things in the space of one night. That's not normal, even by Venus sector standards, and my sector's the weirdest of the lot." Holding up the light jar, he frowned at a couple of unidentifiable moving shadows in the near distance. "Hey, Ivan, your eyes are better than mine for this –"

"Keep your voice down!" the Adept hissed, yanking Isaac down into the decaying leaf-litter and clamping his hand over the normally docile boy's mouth. "Wings –"

The word was whispered: "Cloak." Wings unclasped her hands slowly and hurriedly hid the lightning-filled jar, covering it with the dying, mouldy leaves and ushering Sheba to do the same. "Whatever you do, don't step into the light. The effects will wear off…" she murmured to the girl as she straightened up and proceeded to remain still as the two misted shapes, now recognisable as people of very different heights, continued on their way past.

"…mean, how's it even possible for such a thing to survive the incineration squad? I ought to test it for flameproof psynergy, but how such a spell could be on this when there was only a handful of Venus there is beyond me…" Sheba frowned when she heard the voice, recognising it dimly in the back of her mind.

The other voice was familiar too. "Huh, you're just thinkin' way too hard about it. It just got lucky, Jenna, let's leave it at that. I don't wanna be hauled up in front of Menardi again 'cos of another of your findings." The male voice sighed. "Man, that gets pretty damn irritating, you know that?"

The colder female voice cut across him. "Garet, shut up. This could be important. It could be even more of a clue to which people are involved with the Seekers!"

"Why?"

"Oh, please, you're not that thick." The smaller figure rounded on the taller, bulkier one and shook her head, holding out something in her hands. "Not just any Adept can flameproof cloth, Garet. It means that there are traitors in our own Clan."

Garet shook his head. His voice was sad and slightly pointed when he spoke. "You're just readin' too deeply into this, Jenna. It's probably got nothin' to do with the Seekers anyway – look, I'm not thick, and I _know_ that there are cases of cloth surviving fires. Can't you quit thinkin' about your job for just a minute every now and then?" His tone became defiant, almost angry. "Besides, if there's traitors in our Clan, what does that make _you_?"

Jenna glared at him, her harsh cold eyes boring holes through his warmer ones. "My _blood_ has nothing to do with this. If the First and Second Ladies trust me enough to give me this position, then you should too. Just because my heritage is dirty doesn't mean I am."

"I never said that –"

"You were implying it, idiot."

"But –"

"Shut up."

"Will you _quit_ acting like my sister!?" the guard yelled, making his voice rebound off the thin, slumbering trees and ricochet throughout the forest. "It's bad enough with one person in my life slowly turning into a lizard! If you go too I dunno what I'd do!" He visibly shook with what Isaac presumed was anger, but at the same time such concentrated concern eked through his voice that his shouting only made him sound desperate. "I get your reasons! What I don't get is why you have to ignore your friends like this! Why the hell've you changed so much since you did that first solo, huh!? What the hell happened to you?!"

The girl dropped her arms to her sides, shot Garet full of holes with her stare again, and walked right past him in the direction of the citadel. She said nothing. The silence – the horrid, frightening silence, brimming with unspoken threats and anger that had to be unvoiced – began to consume the guard as he stood there, staring at his leaf-litter-covered boots with unbearable unhappiness chiselled into his face as the inspector strode further and further away. Still hidden and unseeable in the shadows, the four Seekers could only stare in amazement at the guard's reaction to the inspector's treatment of him.

Isaac could have sworn that he saw regretful tears on the boy's face when he clenched his fists and walked away in the same direction as the girl had.

Dropping the psynergetic spell, Wings rose from the ground and tugged Sheba up with her, removing the lightning jars from their hiding-place before looking ahead into the fog again for Seer and Isaac. A few words rose inside her, almost spilling from her mouth like water from a fountain, but she wasn't sure if she dared speak them; they involved the name that had become taboo around the two from the Venus sector, after all. Eventually she decided to remain quiet, nervously watching the back of Isaac's head, glancing down at Sheba, and trying to work out for whom the question would have hurt more.

She was shocked into stopping still when the Venus Adept turned his head to smile at the two girls. "Didn't the Mars girl sound like Felix?"

______________________________________________________________________________

It wasn't going as it was supposed to. Nothing was working. Nothing had worked since the first day of the interrogation, absolutely nothing. It irritated her. Oh, yes, it irritated her. Sometimes it was more than just _irritation_, and it transformed, oh how it _did_ transform, into things far worse than mere irritation, metamorphosing into blatant anger and utter detestation, only creating inside her mind and body a sheer loathing for all like the prisoner.

She didn't use his name. A hideous _creature_ like that could hardly deserve a human name.

After the way it had _bit_ her on the first day, the Third Lady kept her distance from the Seeker. It gave her some satisfying, pleasurable chill to see the blood-brown scabs on its face in the light from the window, where the little chips of terracotta pot had been driven into its cheeks. Especially because after she'd spoken to the First Lord and Lady about the thing being slashed circle. It felt…good. The pain she could see on its face was so _stimulating_. So…so…

Half of the time she spent hours waiting for it to answer even the simplest, most innocent of questions. Seemingly it had shut its mouth permanently in regard to answering anything. But the Third Lady knew of many ways to get a person to talk. Dropping its name the first day had been a mistake – a _delirious_ mistake, she realised, letting old memories like that surface during an interrogation and mark her out as being almost un-Mars-like. And yet…just the occasional hint of bringing danger to the Venus sector, and it would open its mouth and hiss at her in short, almost incomprehensible syllables thick with loathing and anger.

The dreams had begun to subside, too. No more sudden visits from an anonymity in her head at night. Not as often, anyway – although…although the one she'd had only the night before had been frighteningly potent and vividly real. Her body wouldn't let her forget it, either, but that wasn't able to hinder her progress with work anymore as it used to. It lingered in her bones and flesh, that foreign sensation of –

No time to think about _that._

"Stubborn as ever, I see," she told it icily, shifting a little in her chair to reach for her pen and a pristine sheet of paper. Much as she…what was it? No matter. "Well, an order to have you tortured is easily written, you see," she added, the pen starting to scratch its way across the paper, leaving its pure black tracks behind it in the form of severe, perfectly-formed calligraphy lettering that swiftly began to spell out what the Second Lord was now permitted to do. _If_ she didn't get anything out of the Seeker today. "Of course…I could always…burn this," she added, almost as an ultimatum. "If you tell me what I want to know."

No reply.

"Then you'll be busy with the torturers tomorrow, Seeker."

"What makes you think I care?" it muttered.

The Third Lady stood, looking majestic and eminently dangerous in the light spilling through the stained glass window, and paced towards the door. For a moment she paused before unbolting it and pushing it open. "The fact that the last people I sent down there almost didn't return alive. The fact that…oh, who was it? I think his name was Jasper, the fact that he would have died if he hadn't said something after being sent to Lord Agatio."

Something in the Seeker's stance suddenly changed, its head whipping round to glare further loathing at the Mars Lady.

"Why, does the name mean anything to you?" the Third Lady queried, her voice sickeningly pleasant to the boy's ears and at the same time at least as venomous as the twisted nests of vipers tucked away in tangled, frightening corners in the Venus sector. "Strange how it seems that only _names_ have an effect on you. Then again, I suppose that some Venus doesn't deserve…true emotions or intelligence. Especially one such as _you_."

Silence again. She noticed something alter in the Seeker's eyes but was unable to recognise it; it was something…something she used to be familiar with, the Third Lady knew. So why could she no longer tell what it was? She dismissed the idle, pathetic thought without even shaking her head and unbolted the heavy timber door, pushing it open with barely any effort. She had truly become far more like those she respected if she could do _that_, and the thought made something in her chest swell. There it was again: something she couldn't recognise any longer. Outside the door a boy waited – just some guard, some random ginger-haired guard – and she handed him the roll of paper without a word.

Her mind was so preoccupied with getting anything out of the Seeker that not even her subconscious mind realised that a tiny blue blur slid behind her and into the room before the door closed. The plants weren't blind to it, but recently they'd discovered that trying to tell their previously kind and wonderfully brilliant mistress anything at all had become…impossible. The hard woman the last handful of days had transformed her into barely understood the plants at all, and it worried them. Even releasing their most perfect scents at night to try to soothe her as she slept had no effect…

Effortlessly slipping between the sun-warmed terracotta pots, the almost sapphire-coloured creature hopped across the flagstones quietly, making the occasional little rippling, bubbling sound that went unnoticed by both of the room's occupants as it bounded across the stones. It paused by a table leg and fixed its topaz-yellow eyes on the flat, lacquered surface of the tabletop, before suddenly transforming into a puddle of impeccably-clear water and twining itself up the leg to rest on the top, roughly halfway between Mars and Venus.

Felix mentally bit back what he wanted to yell in the Lady's face, glaring down at his cuffed wrists instead. _Huh. I knew full well I'd be tortured anyway,_ he thought bluntly. _This _is_ a Mars Lady, and it's not as if I don't know precisely what they can do._ His face scrunched up slightly as harsh pain flooded into his head through the mark on his right temple, but he forced himself to ignore it to prevent the Mars from noticing his pain. _I can't let her see how much it hurts. It would be betraying dad again…_

He'd not been blind to the alterations in the interrogator. Not at all. The way she now didn't even bother trying to disguise her loathing for him he'd half-expected, but…she was almost even more like the caged creature he'd thought of her as back at the execution. As if the door to that cage had diminished into almost nothing, the lock so tiny and dangerously complex there was no chance of her escaping from it and returning to what she _should_ be.

And there was that almost sickening irony again: Venus pitying Mars. It was _laughable_. It was sick, and it was wrong, and it had already caused too much harm for his family. Oh, yes it had. The memory might have been hazy and uncertain, but Felix knew perhaps too well exactly how much harm could come from Venus pitying Mars; it made the scar throb with new if partially numb pain whenever the memory came to visit, as a little lasting memento of how useless he'd been then, unable to help, unable to protect those dear to him…

For a moment he scowled when the faces of the two people most important to him rose unbidden from the blackened depths of his mind. _If Isaac's still eating that godsdamn scarf if I ever get back alive, I'm gonna bloody well confiscate the stupid thing. That _thing_ is too much of a health hazard to be kept around his neck. He'll get sick from that one day. _A different thought touched him softly, as if quietly reminding him of something else important. _He'd better be taking care of Sheba. I already lost my blood sister. I don't want to lose Sheba. I can't…I can't let her…_

The Mars was eyeing him suspiciously again over her interlocked fingers. He'd come to recognise that look over time, deceptively quiet and almost a little brooding, annoyed, irritated. With the sunlight bleeding through the window and insistently clinging to her hair, dribbling down the sides of her perfect, almost marble face, brushing a tiny amount of colour into her body that made her more real, she somehow appeared to be even less human than previously. Those eyes – glassy. Those entwined fingers, slender, long, but brittle. On the visible outside there were no imperfections, only stainless, spotless Mars ideology and no real warmth…

Warmth…

What the _hell_ was that warm, wet thing sliding round his wrists?

______________________________________________________________________________

She'd done it again. She'd gone and done it _again._

Jenna slammed her hand against the shower cubicle wall and tried not to swear, the words spilling up from inside of her and stuffing her mouth to bursting point. Slapping her hands to her face and roughly dragging them down over her dripping skin before the palms of her hands met just under her chin. She moaned and shook her head, half-heartedly reaching out and twisting the shower knob to cut off the scalding water that'd been pummelling her body for the last half an hour. Her feet were heavy and maybe too pink when she tried to lift them up and attempt walking towards her room; in the end she stumbled instead, fumbling with the old, scratchy towel she always used as she tried to dry off slightly.

_Oh, gods…elements…that feels…a bit better._ Rubbing the towel against her face, she blew a few dripping strands of hair out of her lightless eyes and slumped onto her bed, twining her toes in the thick knotted rug out of habit. _Not that anything really helps. Why am I such an idiot sometimes?_ _It's clear Garet's already cut up enough with his sister turning into somebody barely human who sprouts scales and talons whenever anyone talks to her, and I just went and made him even _more_ depressed._

With a dejected sigh, she swung her legs up onto the bed and lay back, aimlessly looking at the blank ceiling. Well, blank-ish. A spider had set up home in one corner of the ceiling, spinning its sparkling gossamer silk back and forth to make an oh-so-delicate but phenomenally durable web. Jenna shuddered involuntarily as she saw the arachnid's spindly little legs, remembering the little incident involving a few hundred tarantulas and her broken leg. _Ugh. But it's okay, that little one up on the ceiling's fine, it's just a little spider…_

But didn't little things grow into bigger things?

She sat up again and exhaled loudly, closing her eyes and homing in on her psynergetic core. There it was, all neatly laid out and ready for her to call to when she needed it. Okay. Everything was in order there. _When I open my eyes everything will be okay. Everything will be fine. I'll go and talk to Garet, I'll explain, I'll say sorry. I'll stay calm._ Lingering for several minutes at the soothing heart of her power, formed of swirls and spirals in rich earthy reds and browns, Jenna gradually resurfaced from her mind, her eyes slowly opening a miniscule fraction of an inch at a time.

There. Back to normal. The inspector moved around her room briskly, dressing as she found the appropriate items of clothing, tying up previously tangled laces, doing up buckles, yanking a brush through her hair and forcibly pulling at the callous knots sneakily concealed in the thick brown-red waves, teasing her on purpose when the brush snagged while she was trying to fix her ponytail properly. _Yes. Back to normal, alright._ Placing the brush down on her desk, Jenna eyed herself in the little mirror and nodded, satisfied. _Okay then, Garet said he was…outside Lady Kay's rooms…_

The thought of the Third Lady provoked her into shuddering momentarily again, remembering the aura the older woman had been exuding ever since she'd been told she'd interrogate that Venus boy. Not quite the same as Menardi's or Karst's, but similar enough for people's attitude towards the youngest of the Mars Ladies to have altered yet again. Jenna knew too well now that whenever the Third Lady was mentioned there was a collective shiver amongst company. It wasn't pleasant. And it was ripping Garet up, shredding the hope he used to have of keeping Kay in contact with reality even when she attained her predetermined post imposed on her by the other Lords and Ladies years before. That had been his reason for coming to the palace.

What tiny shards of brightness remaining in Jenna's eyes dimmed and quavered as guilt torturously seeped through her body from her back. _And I've just been making him worse. How could I be so…so pathetically dumb! After all he's done for me…I…I can't even try to help him cheer up anymore…_

Her vision was hooked by the rag doll's small button eyes and mouth-less face. She faltered, then hesitantly reached down and lifted it up to her eye line to survey its every stitch and facet again, no longer unnerved by the sensation of familiarity that overran the one of guilt within her. Ever since she'd found it, she'd filed meticulously through her reels of memory for any vestige of the doll, but it wasn't there. It just wasn't. Since the…incident that morning, she'd flung out of her mind the idea of showing it to her superiors, especially Lady Karst. She trusted Garet. She trusted him on what he said about the Lords and Ladies.

So why had she…been so cruel…?

_Ugh. No time to think about that. Go and apologise, Jenna._ Striding over to a shelf filled with general miscellany ranging from inkpots to an unused first aid kit, she nibbled her lower lip with concentration as she slid the doll between sheaves of unbound paper and carefully covered the whole shelf with a piece of plain cloth she'd probably bought years ago to make something from and had never got round to it. _There. Now nobody can find you unless I invite someone in and they start poking around._ Satisfied with her precise concealment, Jenna allowed a small smile to cross her face before composing herself and turning for the door out into the inspectors' corridor.

Ignoring the typical, dull Mars Clan paraphernalia adorning the walls, she began to head off along the passage in the direction of the Third Lady's tower, nodding politely to her fellow inspectors when she passed a group of them talking in the usual morose Mars way on their way back to their rooms. The handful of servants cleaning the hallways she pretended not to see.

_smASHcrinkletintintin…_

"What the –" Jenna broke into a run as more sounds of smashing glass exploded into her ears. The sound had come from the mirrored corridor – the main corridor leading from the palace entrance towards meeting rooms and living quarters. "But those mirrors…the glass in them is reinforced, isn't it?" she muttered to herself as she skidded to change direction, several guards doing the same up ahead of her. "So how could anyone –"

Her thoughts were drowned out by the oddly musical _scrunch_ing sound of boots on splintered glass, and she looked down at the ground in horror. The floor wasn't just littered with glass – the transparent shards filled the entire passageway, wall to wall, end to end – the entire floor was covered with razor-blade glass that used to be in the mirrors. Stopping while the others who'd run with her carried on, Jenna gaped at the walls that had been the backing for the innumerable mirrors, her mind unable to cope with the sheer immensity of _power_ needed to do such a thing. _It's…it's impossible. This kind of strength isn't real! Even with an iron bar this is preposterous!_ she thought as she _crunch_ed her way up to the bare wall and placed the flat of a hand against the bare, unmarked and unadorned wood. _The wood's not even been scratched…_

A servant stood with her back pressed against the wall, her eyes rounder than coins and shimmering with terrified tears that occasionally shuddered down her cheeks. "Ah…a man, with his bare hands…h-he…" She focused her eyes on Jenna's properly. "He smashed all the mirrors with his bare hands…a-and…he went th-that way…" Her finger pointed in the direction of the Third Lady's tower.

_A man did all that with his bare hands? What is he, some kind of immortal monster?_ Jenna thought as she broke into a run down the rest of the incredibly long corridor. _But if he headed this way, then…_ Her breath was drawn in sharply. _Oh no – Garet!_

Yells slashed through the air as she darted down the corridor, her boots now treading miniscule broken glass crystals into the floor –

"Stop them!"

"It's the Seekers – someone block their way!"

"Gah – the Venus reached the main corrid – uh…"

Jenna barely heard the last shout gurgle to a stop; somebody was dashing down the corridor towards her – she couldn't quite see the person's face, but – male, late teens, long hair (dark brown, loose), and very fast – too fast – holding some kind of blue…demon? _Agh – I've got to stop him – now!_

"Get outta the way, Mars!" he hissed when she intercepted him head-on, knowing she wasn't going to manage holding him back for long. "Gah – you'll get you head smashed in if you don't let go, you stupid bitch –!"

"Felix – get moving!"

"This bitch isn't fucking well letting go!" The slice that Jenna saw of his eyes was perforated with concentrated loathing directed solely at her. "Hey – you water thing – do something!"

_What the HELL?_ Something slimy and wet clamped onto her hand and was oozing along her arm towards her shoulder, making her shriek and take a few steps away from the Venus Seeker in shock and disgust. He didn't even acknowledge her when he continued with his charge along the corridor in the direction of the main doors, closely followed by the…the sticky, slippery, oozing _thing_ that had twined its way up the inspector's arm.

If she hadn't been busy trembling with disgust at being touched by whatever it had been – _well, the Venus boy too, but even that wasn't as horrid as _– she may not have seen the other two figures flash past her almost too fast to see. The taller of the two, Mercury judging by the almost turquoise colour of his hair, had to be in league with the Venus Seeker, considering that by the time he'd reached the door he'd almost been caught up to by the –

"Lady Kay…?"

– who clearly wasn't impressed with her prisoner escaping and the one who'd helped him get away, as she flung a series of tiny white-hot fireballs after the Mercury without even calling the name of the spell. Jenna faltered from going to help after noticing the look on the Third Lady's face; it was twisted, contorted, brimming with anger and loathing not unlike that in the eyes of the Venus Seeker. It wasn't the face of the reasonably kind young lady Jenna had known before Garet's sister had been elevated to her 'true' position…

Garet…

Her inspector's mind whirred into action as it flicked through the images of the last minute and the few moments in which she'd been told where Garet was. _He's in the Third Lady's tower…but if the Third Lady herself was following those people, then – _the thoughts reverberated in her head, making her turn and dash along the corridor towards the Third Lady's tower, oblivious to the cries from her colleagues for her to go and damn well help them, not run off like some coward! Not that she cared…not that such things bothered _her_, the Second Lady's ward –

The stairs – there were so many, too many, it felt like she was practically trying to climb up to heaven from the innumerable steps – made flat, definitely non-echoing sounds as her feet pounded against them in her hurry. Her feet throbbed by the time she was nearing the top, close to the landing, but the blood rushing in her head from panic swamped the pain with fear. If her deduction was correct, then – then –

She was right.

Normally realising that she was right gave her a slight thrill of being correct. This time she could only stare in sickened horror at the figure slumped against the intricate mosaics, blood flowing from his head freely where it had smacked against the wall.

Her eyes found the silhouette of the Third Lady's maid. "Go get a healer." The shadow faltered, and Jenna felt her anger rising almost exponentially as she forcibly strode across the landing towards the red-spattered mosaics and floor. She knew the maid hadn't moved. "Hurry up! I doubt the Third Lady will take it kindly that her brother died from blood loss because you couldn't move yourself, you stupid girl!"

"B-but –"

"Move it!" Jenna hissed, her eyes almost as cold as those of the Lords and Ladies. When the maid had started to clatter worriedly down the impossible number of stairs, the inspector reached out to find the guard's pulse in his neck; it was there, weak, but definitely there, if getting slower every second. She let out a torn, juddering breath and bit down hard on her lower lip while she tried to assess the actual damage to her friend. The blood was matting in his hair, making it infinitely more difficult to work out where the injury was, and she almost didn't dare move him in case she only hurt him even more than she already had…

The commotion from below escalated into a conglomeration of terrified, horror-instilled yelps, shouts, gasps of pure panic – rough, practically uncultured sounds normally disdained by the stern-natured Clan that was daring to use them. Jenna pretended to ignore it, knowing she should be focusing completely on her friend, her best friend, that idiot, that stupid, stupid, _stupid_ idiot, but, but, she almost couldn't…th-the devotion to her Clan…it…it…

She forced herself to concentrate.

And then it was all so much easier…concentration had nothing to do with it, not with the movements her muscles still remembered from years before when Garet being injured badly had been a commonplace enough occurrence for the higher-ups to view it as normal for Jenna to help heal him. So normal that she just reacted in such a way that it was difficult to tell whether she – the inspector – was in charge of her body or not; when Feizhi returned with a flustered healer, they both commented on Jenna's unusual behaviour.

That was _before_ they told her what had happened out in the mist-drenched courtyard, the telling of which made her eyes visibly widen. "…that…please say that's not true."

Feizhi shook her head, her face brimming with unexpected anguish and worry. "It is not, Miss. It is the truth. My Lady…My Lady, she has been kidnapped by the Seeker two."

…_oh, gods…Garet…I…couldn't really help in the end…some friend I am…_

______________________________________________________________________________

Wings wasn't quite certain which was worse: being shrouded in thick, syrupy fog or engulphed by ever-encroaching, light-hungry darkness. The change of scenery didn't bring her much confidence either; having never been down a mine before, she hadn't honestly known what to expect – nonetheless, realising that the only light down there would come from the lightning zinging around in a few jars had been a shock. Of course she could work in the dark – that was why she could cast the Cloak psynergy spell, to keep her hidden in the darkness, to keep her safe. Knowing that didn't bring her much comfort in the cramped, damp, distinctly chilly mine.

If anything, it brought back her memories of _him_. Especially the slight coldness infiltrating her clothes and breathing over her skin…

"Wings, they'll be fine."

She looked up, startled by Isaac's sudden appearance. He'd wandered off down the corridor with the other two to make sure they got through the gap alright with the tools they needed, but she hadn't expected him to come back. "I'm not worried about them. Well…maybe I am, if Seer starts panicking about being shrunk by moisture again."

"Moisture? Oh, watery stuff?" He beamed at her when she nodded to confirm his answer. The smile saddened a little when he realised that his normal optimistic, sunshine brightness wasn't getting through to the Angelical Healer, and it eventually became his tamer, concerned look. "So what _is_ worrying you? It's not right when you don't smile…"

"It's nothing," she replied quickly. _Nobody else needs to know about it. It would frighten them too much…and Isaac will only try more questions to find things out. Besides, talking about _him_ is just…ugh._ She shivered, feeling the memory of being entrapped by the layers of blood-freezing snow unleash its affects on her body again. _Not pleasant._ "I'm just not used to not knowing what Seer's up to. We always look out for each other."

Isaac nodded. "Yup. Like me and Sheba and Felix." He chuckled slightly at the mention of the absent Venus Adept. "Sure hope he's okay. If the Mars find out that he's…well…I don't think they'll want him to be around 'em for much longer."

"That he's what?"

"Secret. Can't tell you that. Like you wouldn't tell me where we were going when we were on the way to meet that Revealer lady." His smile could have lit up the corridor better than the lightning jars if they'd made the lightning darken. "Heh. But he'd better come back alive, or I won't forgive him. I spent most of my life trying to get him outta that slump of his, and if it turns out he's gone and _died _I won't be impressed."

Intrigued, Wings frowned slightly when Isaac dropped to the floor and sat there opposite her in the passageway. "What are you talking about, you won't forgive him? If he's…" (she couldn't bring herself to say the word herself) "…then it's not as if you can do much about it."

Isaac shook his head, the lightning enhancing the scruffiness of his mad blond hair. "Still. You think he's bad now? He was worse when we were younger. Wasn't anybody as pessimistic as him under the sun. I spent years getting him to brighten up. 'Course, it was easier after he found Sheba, but…"

"Found?"

"Huh? Yeah. Thought I'd already told you…" He broke off suddenly, frowning into the gloom. "Hey, Wings, did you hear something?"

Wings frowned at him herself, shaking her head after listening for several moments to the guttural silence. "No…maybe it was just your imagination." She watched the back of his head for a moment, noticing the way he seemed even stranger in the greeny-yellow glow emanating from the captive lightning. Almost…unapproachable. The peaks of his hair somehow became gold-touched mountains – the Goma Range in January at sunset, maybe – impossible to mimic, tiring and difficult to climb, and somehow lonely as well as formidable. It wasn't right. This wasn't the person that they'd come to know. "Are…are you alright?"

"Yeah. Just…nervous. Not been back in the sector for so long, so if I get caught…" He turned his head to reveal his teeth in a broad grin. "Well, I don't think they'll be too happy. My Clan, I mean." The smile made Wings relax a little, feeling relieved that he'd returned to his normal state of mind. "Hope we can get this finished up soon."

"Yes." _I wonder if Mariner's okay, being left on his own on the ship with that sudden bout of amnesia. _She felt her body tremble slightly when the next thought, unbidden but subconscious, infiltrated her mind and drifted into the centre of her concentration. _What if it's to do with _him_? Or, or that…the injury he had a while back, what if it's part of that? And…oh no, if _he's_ behind it all, then…then…_

Isaac's laughter echoed comfortingly in her head, so unlike the virtual trepanning he'd attempted numerous times to extricate any information from her. "Hey, smile! You look even more nervous than I feel!" His expression had altered when she turned her head to look at him, becoming…older, calmer. "Besides," he added, leaning in towards her, "someone with your brightness shouldn't have to be sad and gloomy. It looks wrong."

She felt heat convect upwards from her neck to her cheeks, but it was thankfully disguised by the mine's ethereal illumination that enhanced the roughness of the crude, beam-propped walls but managed to inhibit colour vision. "As if there isn't enough wrong with us lately already," she replied, leaning back from him fractionally, just in case he noticed. "…did you hear that?" she found herself adding when a muffled _ka-klik ka-klik _touched the very edges of her hearing. "Maybe it was just me."

The Venus boy seemed to sharpen for a moment as he went silent and concentrated. "…no. I can hear it too." When he looked up from apparently perusing the gravel track his eyes were uncharacteristically concerned. "Agh – this area's still in use!" The sounds of rattling, now accompanied by low mutterings and the momentary snatch of laughter, were now clearly audible and definitely getting louder. Wings noticed Isaac's eyes widen drastically. "We've gotta move – now!"

"But surely –"

"Now! C'mon! If we get caught, then –" he hauled her to her feet and practically dragged her down the corridor at a run "– how d'you think Sheba an' Seer are gonna get back? Huh? An' what about –" he yelped when his shoulder collided with a corner "– ow, that _hurts_, what about Mariner? Isn't he goin' mad? How's he gonna cope if we suddenly vanish, like that?"

Wings struggled to keep up, even with Isaac's hand latched so firmly onto her wrist it would take several crowbars to prise off, hindered by her heavy skirts and the fact that escape of any form had never been her strong point. "What do you mean, going mad – ah!"

"Sh!" Hurriedly yanking the Mercury girl into a lightless alcove, Isaac slapped one hand over her mouth while cupping his spare hand to his ear to listen. Wings knew he didn't speak, but even with her nonexistent lip-reading skills she could recognise _Don't say anything_.

The voices were closer now, three or four of them in total.

"…ds only know, I guess, in the end. You see them crystals near the entrance?"

"All lit up? Yeah! Weird, but even the Mars didn't notice!"

Laughter. Real, earthy laughter. But it echoed with sorrow and bitterness. Wings shivered; it was colder than the ice-packed snowdrift of long ago.

"…y'know, I thought that stuff never lit up. Not since them three disappeared."

"The girl, wasn't it – she was the one who made it all light up. What's her name? That Clanless kid, the one always with those two who were in trouble every other day – aw, what was it? Began with an S."

"…Susan?"

"No! Too plain. It was a weird name, not all plain like that. Sibyl?"

"Dumbass, that's a _Mars_ name – began with a 'sh', didn't it?"

"Sh…sh, sh…oh, yeah – Sheba!"

Wings didn't dare glance up at Isaac's face, knowing it would only worry her.

"That's the one. Well, she only ever went down the mines once or twice, then that brother of hers…well, we all know what _he_ was like. You heard them rumours 'bout him and Jasper?"

"…you mean the…uh…" the silence was filled with a pair of swishing noises.

"Yep. Reckon it's true, personally. Right kinda personality."

"Hey, you know what _else_ some of the Mars are saying?" added a fifth voice abruptly. "They reckon they caught someone who fits that guy's description. So…well, didn't the three of 'em run off? Isn't that…well, you know…punished?"

"Lashes, I think. But it's practically the death sentence." This voice was the oldest-sounding one. "Huh. It's more likely that they really were involved with the Seekers, so…that means an interrogation before hanging. Kids these days, always doing reckless things…"

Isaac suddenly stiffened, snatching his hand away from Wings' mouth and staring at her, panicked and insecure. His mouth formed words that the Angelical Healer couldn't see in the sheer darkness, making him jitter slightly before unexpectedly grabbing at her waist and pulling Heher close to him. For a moment she almost shrieked, before realising he was yanking at her cloak… _So…so that's what he meant…ah! And they're almost right on top of us!_

Even with Wings' psynergy hiding the two Adepts in the darkness, Isaac couldn't curb the pit of worry and fear that had somehow thrown off its lid inside his stomach and was beginning to devour him from the inside. They were talking about the stardust. They'd said it had lit up. And then…then it was about Felix, him getting caught. In the dark, the Venus boy didn't dare find a corner of scarf to chew and instead clutched Wings even closer protectively. Then again, he wasn't sure if he was trying to protect her or if he wanted to be protected…but it wasn't the time to think about that. They were saying more!

"You're slow, pal. Didn't you hear the other stuff from the couple of Mars guards who ran in from the citadel? Another Seeker bust the one they caught outta the palace. _And_," the speaker continued, pausing for effect, "they say the Third Lady got kidnapped by them Seekers…"

Wings screwed up her face like a sheet of discarded paper as the group of men shambled past the hiding place, not even bothering to restrain herself from burying her head into Isaac's chest.

"Shit! The sector's gonna be crawling with Mars tomorrow! I know they don't pay us much attention, but, y'know, they always immediately blame us if something's amiss!"

"Keep your voice down! There's always echoes here, and they'll get back to the Mars up top. Let's just get to the lower shaft and get to work, or my family's not gonna eat today."

The chatter quietened as the work men followed the corridor around and found the carts that would lead them to the lower levels. Clattering away along the tracks in the rickety vehicular shambles, the group was ignorant and certainly deaf to the sound of feet frantically scrambling along the corridor in the same direction, the pebbles _scrunch_ing and tending to jump up from the ground with alarm. The owners of the feet halted abruptly by a nearly-invisible fissure in the wall of the mine; where the floor and the wall joined, there was an opening that led to the depths of the mines without having to use the mine-carts.

Isaac was already on his hands and knees, crawling into the hole as rapidly as his body would allow, when Wings had managed to catch her breath after being dragged along the corridor by the wordlessly frightened Venus Adept. "S-sorry about grabbing onto you like that –"

"Sh! Come on." Isaac peered up at her from the darkness below and beyond the wall, holding up his arms for her to hold onto when coming down. "We've gotta get to Sheba and Seer before the work gang finds them. Hurry!" He had to effectively pull her down when her cloak snagged on an unfriendly jagged rock, giving himself another excuse to hold onto her for comfort for just a couple of seconds.

Wings had to keep holding onto Isaac's hand as she followed him along the lightless network of almost labyrinthine passages that were clearly not built for people of their stature. _It makes sense why only Seer and Sheba went down to reach those runes,_ she thought when first Isaac then herself bumped their heads on the increasingly lower ceiling. "Isaac, are you okay?"

His reply was as whispered as her own words. "Yeah. Just…" He paused, clearly taking deep breaths of the stuffy mine air to calm himself down. "…just a bit worried. Can't let Sheba get caught – or Seer. I wouldn't ever be forgiven. So I've gotta go find them, y'know, make sure we all get back alright…" This time Wings felt aware that he was glancing over his shoulder at her. "Besides, I don't think I could forgive myself if anything happened to the people who ended up saving my life."

"…you do realise that you're pretty strange, don't you?"

"Ha!" Isaac was probably grinning at that, knowing what he was like. "Yep. But at least I'm in good company for that right now."

"Wh-what are you talking about?" Wings almost let go of Isaac's hand at that, startled by the suddenness of yet another switch between his two personalities. "How – what – uh –"

She was suddenly aware that he had turned on her and was holding onto her hand far tighter than previously. "Well, anyone who's willing to be part of a resistance group fighting against the Mars Empire for somethin' they're not even sure about has to be kinda strange, right?" Was it just her imagination or did the air around her suddenly seem warmer, not quite in a comforting way and yet nowhere near threatening? The iciness that had forced her into recalling being encapsulated in the snowdrift was being driven away inexplicably, and she was certain that she could feel Isaac's breath taking the edge of the chill off her face. "So…at least _decent_ company, right? Especially seeing as I got to give you more than a smile at last."

"You're not making any sense," she replied after a handful of seconds when they started to continue making their way along the diminishing passages. "Uh – hang on, what was _that?_" Her eyes had snagged on something that had inexplicably begun to sparkle profusely from within the wall. It gleamed even brighter, bright enough to eclipse what little was left of the bottled lightning they'd had to leave behind in the alcove; the Mercury girl was so entranced by its sudden glittering appearance that she didn't even register that Isaac had flinched and was now pulling her along the corridor faster than before.

"Pretty, right? It's called stardust," he told her in a murmur so quiet it almost intentionally evaded her ears. _Oh no. It really _has_ started to react already. This is bad…even though it's really pretty, it's also too dangerous or anybody to see – Felix will kill me if he finds out that I told somebody that Sheba…_ "We're nearly there. It'll be nice to see things again – even if holding hands is kinda nice in itself."

Wings was uncertain as to what to say to that, and she wasn't hugely aware that her cheeks were developing that delicate colour of cherry-ripe red. The thought vanished from her mind when another flash of sparkling light pierced through the darkness, followed by another (this one stronger and definitely more blinding, almost akin to fire suddenly sparking) a little further along the passage, and then another. "Something's not right here," she said, more to the surrounding air than to her hurrying companion. "Ow – Isaac, I can't run that fast – and why are we running – I thought this was faster than the carts' way –"

"Just keep running!" he replied, chewing on his lower lip as the lightshow became even more fantastic, the pale blue-purple flashes more frequent and occasionally bursting into view right in front of his eyes. _Not good. Really not good._ Blinking didn't remove the harsh afterglow of the potentially dooming lights. He collided with a corner and swore.

"If you just slow down –"

_Slowing down isn't an option here!_ The stubborn thought made him smack into one of the glowing clusters of crystals themselves. "Haha…I'm really being clumsy here, aren't I?" he commented wearily, disguising the pinch of persimmon bitterness as well as he could given the circumstances. "C'mon, we're nearly there." _I hope so, anyway. Gods, don't let Seer have worked out what the link is with the stuff lighting up and Sheba…_

Wings tripped on her skirt and tumbled into Isaac. "Sorry," she said, regret tingeing her voice as she attempted to get back on her feet and help the slightly beleaguered Adept up off the stone-encrusted ground. "Are you –" Yet another sight-destroying blue-purple flash threatened to blind them, this one the most powerful yet. "…Isaac, what's going on?"

The next blaze of light made them both reel back with pain. Venus glanced up at Mercury. "We've gotta move, now." Struggling to his feet, he rubbed at his eyes in vain and almost careened into the wall for the third time. "Damn. Ow…" He flicked a muddied, trailing end of his scarf over his shoulder and reached out for Wings' hand again, their movements through the passages now substantially slowed by the too-frequent explosions of light from the stardust embedded in the walls.

Suddenly Wings could hear voices, muttering away not much further down the corridor. A steady greenish glow started to emanate from somewhere in front of them, making the harshness of the stardust flashes lessen and forcing the spangles of crystals to only seem to shimmer dully from their positions in the walls. One voice seemed slightly more urgent than the other – very familiarly urgent, given where they were.

"…know that, but we've got to get a move on. I'm getting _wet_ here. _Why _are all mines damp? And Wings will start panicking if we don't get back up soon."

"Almost done. Just this last line left, then we can go."

"Okay, that's good."

Isaac almost tripped over Seer when he entered the small cavern, unaware that the Jupiter Seeker had been sitting on the floor gradually getting wetter and grumpier. "Wah! Careful where you sit, Seer!"

Seer wasn't impressed. "You really know how to make an entrance, don't you? Grabbing someone from behind and putting a knife to their throat, falling over someone…" He shook his head almost with despair. "Well, we're nearly done down here. But…why did you two…?"

"Some people arrived and headed down in the carts," Wings explained while Isaac wandered over to where Sheba was perched on a ledge half-way up the wall. "It wasn't as if we had any other way of coming to tell you, but that passage is small and full of strange flashing lights."

The younger Seeker sighed at her. _She's gone delusional now. There weren't any flashing lights. Then again, this is Wings – agh! That was _cold_!_ Still shivering from the unexpected icicle drip of water that had managed to weasel its way down his back, Seer shook his head again. "What are you talking about? There weren't any lights. Just the lightning in the jars." He held up his own to illustrate his point.

"No, honestly – there were lots of flashing lights, blue and purple ones. It was…incredible. But it was very strange, too, because it looked like the light was coming from clusters of stones in the walls, and it was a little sporadic."

"Wings, I know I've seen stranger things with you than that, but I don't believe you." Seer glanced around at the two originally from the Venus sector, adding in a hushed voice: "What type of stones?"

For a moment the Angelical paused, trying to remember as she let her aqua-coloured eyes roam the walls of the cavern for any sign of the glittering crystal structures. "Um…like the ones near Sheba. Just to the right of her." While Seer frowned at the apparently normal rocks, Wings noticed a smaller chunk of the crystal lying forgotten on the ground and picked it up. "Like this."

Seer took the rock from her white-gloved hands and eyed it critically. _It looks like…well, a normal hunk of rock. But I can't say that to her face…maybe there's something inside it that makes it glow? Not that you can tell with the caught lightning still lighting up the place._ He pocketed the stone anyway. "Let's take a look at it when we get back to the ship. We've got to concentrate on getting out of here first."

"Yes, that's right."

The two at the wall appeared to be deep in conversation about something that Seer couldn't quite make out and wasn't certain if he ought to._ Those two have been odd enough anyway since…so I don't think I should eavesdrop. Still…maybe one of them knows about this 'glowing stone' of Wings'. I'll ask later._ He smiled at them after Sheba had sprang down from the ledge and the blond duo began walking towards them, a roll of paper and several wax crayons of varying colours clutched in Sheba's arms. "Are we leaving, then?"

"Yep," Isaac replied; even to Sheba, who'd been around him for nearly all of her life, his facial expression was…odd. Almost fake. The sunshine brightness seemed glossy and almost Mars-like. "We don't want to get caught by a group of workers, so we'd better get going."

As the four of them began to follow the cramped passage backup to the higher levels, leaving the room with strange, ancient runes scrawled all over the cavernous walls for somebody else to find, only Wings kept her eyes on the walls to check for any unexpected flashes. It didn't go unnoticed by Sheba, and the younger girl promptly began to open a quiet conversation with the Seeker to hopefully take Wings' mind off what Isaac had mentioned to her. _That_ was something that definitely had to be kept quiet. She didn't particularly want to lose the, well, the normality of being treated like she wasn't some complete freak. _I got a little too much of that before._

That was before she somehow knocked her head on a low-hanging part of the passageway's ceiling and knocked into a section of wall fitted with stardust crystals.

The entire passage blazed momentarily with a strong concentration of blue-purple light.

While Sheba flung herself away from the wall and hauled herself back up onto her feet, Isaac confronted the two staring Seekers, for once using his height to look down on them, looking more than very threatening. "Now, let's get this straight. We're not going to talk about this _ever._ Get it?"

The menacing, slightly cold tone was enough to make Seer shiver as the lump of stardust in his pocket suddenly felt a little like a stick of highly fast-acting explosives.


	15. Return

And once more with the dumb computer problems. And GCSE exams in the area. Typical. Well, never mind that – here's chapter fifteen. Shorter than others and covers more time. Also one of the weirder chapters, I think…

Return

Dead leaves, wet from the mist earlier, were churned up with the mud underfoot and only provided the three Adepts (separated by the interruption in the spell) with yet another safety hazard; the possibility of slipping whilst trying to ascertain which way led back home was conjoined with the sheer number of monsters peering out at them from every crevice in a tree branch and from beneath the cold, hard earth itself, leading to one conclusion that definitely wasn't an option for any of the three parties: slip, fall, and be devoured. _Not _an option. More of the cackling wet leaves flittered like a witch's familial bat through the darkening air and perched on the Adepts' hair, where they giggled hysterically until removed.

Mariner halted near the stream and closed his eyes, listening. The memory pain had already begun to lessen, so he knew what he was doing this time – finding Felix and somehow trying to do something about the interloper in the Teleport psynergy. He'd managed to accommodate for the extra person by losing the destination of the spell completely, which now blessed the Mercury Adept with two further problems. "Having to locate Felix and somehow dealing with _her_…" he murmured, exhaling slowly. The tawny eyes snapped open. "That way…"

Everything had become much clearer in the couple of hours that had passed since leaving the citadel. The pain had lessened; remembering things was becoming easier. Mariner sighed as another thought hissed at his consciousness from a dark corner in his mind. _I know. It's only further proof that I'm connected to the start of it all. Proof that Hama…is desperate to find. _He shook more leaves out of his hair and splashed across the stream, somehow not disturbing the fish that still swam there despite the Tundarian temperature of the water.

Another very different spasm of pain wracked his body and he stumbled, catching himself on a tree trunk and steadying himself before trying to keep moving. _The painkiller…these must be the after-effects. This is why I _hate_ taking those things._ A quick glance at his right wrist almost made him flinch; after a second he realised there was no blood and stopped to heave a sigh of relief. Now his memory was easier to access, the likelihood of _him_ being able to attack him through the bond was lowered – but only slightly. _I don't want Mia and Ivan to worry. It would only lead to them being in further pain than they already are._ Especially the Imilian girl.

He concentrated again, focusing on tracking the rapidly-moving target. The gems studded in the hilt of his sword flashed in the weakening sunlight as he moved slowly through the starving forest towards where the quarry was headed. Interesting – not the citadel, but…deeper into the forest…

After the incident in the palace grounds involving the Teleport spell he'd decided against using it for some time. It was a last resort psynergetic power, and over-using it would mean that anyone could discover a method of combating it. For Mariner, that was no option. Considering that the Mars Clan would almost definitely recognise him…being caught was too dangerous. The fact he'd dared the rescue that day was risky enough in itself. How many Mars had known who he was? The look on the Mars Lady's face when she'd seen him had been enough to say that the high-ups definitely knew…

There. Just behind a cluster of evergreen firs. She might have been able to conceal herself well, but the fire in her hair was too clear against the dark green to not be noticed. The slender gold circlet seemed to almost be welded to her head…just like how it had to its _last_ owner, Mariner recalled as he noiselessly entered the fir grove and watched the Mars child twitch a long knife from her skirts and hold it almost carelessly in her hand. No. No Mars Lady held a weapon carelessly. Did she know he was there…?

A whiplash of sound slashed the winter forest's silence. On Mariner's shoulder the little blue creature that had undone the lock on Felix's handcuffs shuddered and shuffled closer to the Adept's neck when the air began to bleed scarlet fire and the sky was cut with unintelligible spat words.

Mariner felt a tiny smile tweak the corners of his mouth. She was _lost_. And she was _angry_. Despite the previous worry about dealing with this girl, everything had suddenly become several times easier. He knew from experience that anger and being lost often combined into fear and panic. Moreover, his experiences were such that he knew precisely how to further the Mars' problem; dealing with the Lady would only take a few minutes if he was careful. The thought made him stop for a moment. _Exactly how much am I remembering now? That's something from long ago…_

It didn't matter. He had to move carefully and exactly from now on if he was to get this right. There was plenty of suitable material around for him to use – _after all, even in winter a forest is a forest and there's always enough wood for a fire._ Surfacing from his thoughts, he eyed the Mars as she slumped to her knees on the frosted floor and glared at the sky with her arms stiffly folded, the wide sleeves of her robes hiding her hands and the knife. _Give her time. Give her some time to adapt._ The couple of minutes he spent waiting would have been silent if the Mars Lady hadn't been muttering her irritation and if he hadn't eventually snapped a dead bough in two just loud enough for her to hear…

The Third Lady's reaction was instantaneous. Her eyes widened very slightly from shock, so slightly that normal eyes wouldn't have detected it, and she gradually rose from her knees almost regally while her fingers tested the blade of the knife. A little nervous tick she'd hidden well – just not quite well enough. Then again, she was unknowingly fighting an old campaigner of the rarest kind; one that could see almost everything. If he was exact with timing, then the Mars had no chance whatsoever of escaping. _An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life…_

The second _crack_, made this time by intentionally stepping on a frostbitten log, resounded firmly amidst the stirring firs. The Mars girl snapped her head round to face the direction from which the sound had come, her eyes flashing dangerously in the pale sunlight before hardening into a pair of sharp-cut emeralds – seeking the source of the noise almost naively, worriedly, completely unlike the normal effectiveness of the Mars Clan. Being in the forest was really affecting her mentally. Mariner scooted the little sapphire being off his shoulder, putting a finger to his lips when it began to produce rippling questioning noises; this task would be incredibly simple, if the Mars' reaction was anything to go by…

When he heard the _third_ sound of something cracking, Mariner himself frowned and tried to discern who the culprit was; whoever it had been was camouflaged well with the grove. He was distracted by the quietened bubbling peals coming from the leaf-litter. "…of course…I should have expected no less," Mariner reflected, taking a few steps away from his previous position and kneeling down to _thump_ his arm against the trunk of a tree. "This is going to take even less time if he knows what he's doing. Shade –"

The creature had already begun to hop through the undergrowth, barely moving the slippery leaves as it effortlessly bounded towards the wary Mars Lady.

"What the – it's you again –!"

Her words were muffled by the impenetrable wall of water that Shade projected around her although it was perhaps slightly too clear that she disliked it. The little blue creature burbled happily at her, provoking an even angrier reaction involving several large fireballs and an aggravated temper. They dissipated upon touching the sides of the watery prison, along with the look of hatred on the Lady's face; it dissolved into frustrated despair as she dropped to her knees and tried to settle her shoulders, although her heavy breathing made that next to impossible.

"She looks homicidal," Felix noted darkly when he stepped out from behind one of the firs. "Almost as bad as the looks she gave me when I wasn't saying anything." He snatched a hand away from his wrist, still raw and almost blood-coloured from the cuffs. "So what do we do with her now?"

Mariner watched the Mars for a moment before answering. "We have no choice but to take her back to the ship with us and confine her." He flinched when pain flickered through his body momentarily. _Fast. I'd rather be somewhere I'm more familiar with when the real after-effects start._ "Eye for an eye."

Felix was immediately sceptical. "Oh, and she's going to come along of her own accord. Not to mention that she'll only end up escaping and bringing the entirety of the Mars Clan's forces down on top of us." He moved to fold his arms and hissed with pain when his clothes rubbed against his sore wrists.

"Getting back to the ship as fast as possible would be advantageous for both of us," Mariner replied, kneeling down next to Shade and lifting the creature onto his shoulder again. "And leaving her here would put us at even greater risk, because she'd definitely get back to the citadel. Eventually."

The Venus boy's eyes flicked to the blue animal and then to the Mars Lady. "So we knock her out and drag her back, I presume."

"Yes –" Mariner flinched again. "Quickly."

"Should I…try to do something?" Felix queried with the merest of glances thrown at the Third Lady. The glare shooting up from beneath her eyelashes would have had the ability to slice diamond down to minute crystals within seconds if the twin emeralds' brightness and loathing hadn't been muted by Shade's barrier. It was irritating, the way that _it_ didn't even react…

"No." Mariner closed his feline eyes and touched his fingers to the scarlet knot at his right wrist. "I've dealt with plenty of Lords and Ladies before. You'd just get yourself hurt again." Amber and emerald vied for dominance in the staring match that began. "She only ever uses half of her psynergetic abilities at any time, probably."

"But it's not like she's breaking out of that wall…"

"Shade can contain anything within his shield. Djinn are not Adepts; their elemental alignment is completely pure, without any of the problems humans bring." _ Yes. Especially in the case of the fractured Mercury Clan._ Mariner wasn't aware that his regret had been undisguised and that Felix had noticed it. "This won't take a minute," he added, taking a couple of steps towards the imprisoned Mars girl with the fingers of his left hand spread.

From the Venus' eyes it looked like the Lady had suddenly been zapped with lightning and collapsed, but there hadn't been any lightning and Mercury was _water_…besides which, Mariner hadn't even moved…

As the shield dissipated, Felix couldn't suppress a slight shudder when Mariner lifted the woman as if she were no more than a lifeless raggedy doll and turned to begin walking towards the ship.

The first thing Isaac noticed when the four comprising the mine excursion team returned to the ship was the distinct presence of Felix sitting in the shadow of the mast with his sleeves rolled up and his hands in a bucket of water, looking typically bored and irritated. The older Adept glanced up at the vaguely surprised boy and narrowed his eyes. "You're eating that bloody scarf again."

"Uh…"

"Take it _out_ of your mouth before you catch something."

Isaac reluctantly tugged the material out of the corner of his mouth and considered how the hell he was going to explain the stardust problem to the person with the lowest anger barrier in terms of his sister that he knew. He hurriedly ran a hand through his sticky blond hair and felt the familiar barbed stare prickle his skin and draw enough blood to remind him that annoying his friend was one of those options he should lock in a box and throw in a bottomless bog for a few hundred years until Isaac stopped being such a twit. "Uh…good to see you again?"

"Felix!"

"Watch the bucket!" Felix half-snapped at his sister when she practically tried to suffocate him. "You still haven't changed, have you?" he added, glad to see Sheba's emphatic shake of her head when she withdrew her arms from around his neck and knelt next to him smiling almost as brightly as Isaac.

"What's with the bucket?" Sheba asked, inquisitive to the last.

In reply Felix lifted one hand from the bucket to reveal the raw marks where the cuffs had scraped and raked his skin, his arm glistening with minute droplets of water where they clung to individual hairs. "Let's just say the Mars didn't exactly consider a Venus Seeker their favourite guest," he told her wryly. His hand dropped back into the bucket, spraying the deck with an intricate, unexplainable pattern of globules of water. "Talking of the Mars, Isaac…"

Isaac sat down next to the darkened area of deck and listened attentively. "Yes?" _Delaying telling him is good as long as he doesn't realise what I'm doing. Please don't let him notice, gods, please don't let him notice…_ "What about the Mars? You got rid of a couple?"

"No –"

Ivan almost fell off the ladder leading onto the ship when the sound of Mia attempting and utterly failing to suppress a shriek of terror and astonishment. Hanging onto the metal bars grimly, he blinked a few times, shook his head and didn't bother hiding a sigh. _Typical Mia. Something minor has happened and she's overreacted. _Another idea slunk into his brain quietly. _Well…I hope so, anyway._ "What's happened?" he asked, dropping down onto the deck.

"She's just noticed what I was trying to tell you about," Felix told Isaac bluntly, wincing when he lifted his hands from the water.

The Angelical Healer flung the door to the main ship open and stared at the others, her aqua eyes skipping from face to face with nervous uncertainty until eventually resting on Felix. "_Why is there a Mars on the ship?_" she said, almost stuttering through the words and then immediately biting her lower lip, her eyes quivering slightly. "I…I just went into one of the empty rooms to air it out and there's a Mars girl lying on the bed comatose!"

"…what," Isaac murmured, turning his gaze from Felix to Mia and back again. "There's a Mars on the ship. _Why_ is there a Mars on the ship?"

Sheba and Ivan glanced at each other silently, unsure of what to say.

"She got caught up in the spell Mariner used to get us away from the palace and we didn't really have any choice but to bring her back with us. Out cold, of course," he added, almost as an afterthought. "It's not as if she's going to behave like a good prisoner, anyway. She _was_ my interrogator."

"But she's a _Lady_," Mia pointed out, still stressing about the situation.

Ivan gave this some thought, absently fingering the lump of stardust in his pocket before feeling a smile grow on his face. "A hostage. Right? Meaning we've got a bargaining chip, Mia. It's a good thing for us – for _all_ of us…" He pointed at the sky for emphasis. "Sure, it means the Mars'll come after us harder than ever, but they can't actually touch us if we've got a hostage – an important hostage!"

"That makes sense," Sheba commented, looking up at the standing Adepts. "By the way, where's Mariner?"

"Cabin. He didn't look well." Felix locked his eyes with Isaac's, knowing exactly what was going through the younger boy's head at the moment. "It wasn't my choice to have her come along," he said.

Isaac shrugged, glancing up only to watch the other three chatter nervously for a moment (Ivan and Sheba trying to calm Mia down a little) before heading into the main part of the ship, probably to see the Mars girl. "…you'll have to keep me under control now if I end up near that Mars. Remember the last time one of them got too close?"

"Too well." Felix felt the memory bobbing up like flotsam and jetsam in a river. "Caused one of our many lashings, if I'm not mistaken. If _I'm_ bad with the Mars then _you're_ worse." Raising his hands from the water, he inspected the red areas circling his wrists and flexed his fingers experimentally. "At least Sheba didn't find out about that one."

"Yeah…" _It wasn't as bad as what you almost did for us back during the famine that nobody knew about 'til you practically dropped dead on us…_ "Still. I don't like the idea of the others trying to stop me from doing somethin' they don't understand. Besides, you can explain it. Well. Kinda." _Right…now, how the hell am I gonna get the stardust problem into the conversation…? He's really not gonna like that. Almost as much as I like the idea of that girl being on the ship with us._

The problem that Isaac faced was rectified almost immediately, if not in the way he wanted it to be. Ivan suddenly appeared next to them, fumbling in his pocket for the lump of rock he'd pocketed earlier and knowing full well that the younger of the two Venus boys was _not_ going to be happy about this. "Hey, do either of you know what this is?" he asked, finally prising the stone free and showing it to them both, pretending to be oblivious to Isaac's frozen blue stare that emanated both fear and anger. "I just picked it up down in the mines and I don't know what it is, but you've both worked down there before so I thought you might know…"

Felix couldn't drag his eyes from the small lump of stone. "…stardust." Ivan nearly took a step back when he recognised the feral anger in the older boy's voice and body language. "It's supposedly matter fallen from the heavens that can be forged into special weapons and armour. Stardust."

Ivan hid behind the mast to hear whatever conversation would begin, only too aware that he'd dropped something incredibly dangerous into Isaac's lap that the Jupiter couldn't actually be blamed for. _I don't like doing this, but there are too many mysteries surrounding you three and I doubt that they're not important._ Just as he slipped the stardust fragment into his pocket, the hissing and whispering began.

"You took Sheba _down the mines?_ Are you crazy, you idiot?!"

"I didn't have any choice! And how was I to know we'd end up going into the stardust area?"

"That stuff's all over the damn mines. It lit up, didn't it? It lit up!"

"…yeah, it did. I tried to stop it –"

"Like hell you did. They both saw it, didn't they?" Felix cursed under his breath for several seconds while Isaac waited in silence for whatever came next and Ivan listened intently. "Isaac, you know full well _why_ I can't let anyone find out about how I found Sheba. I mean…in those books we were told to find, when I got caught, there were lots of different versions of that legend about the fallen star. Not the bloody version we know, tamer versions. But it still means that the Mars –"

"Yeah. They still think about the power."

"So it's even more important for nobody to find out. Nobody can know."

_I wonder what legend that is,_ Ivan pondered as he noiselessly entered the ship and began to walk towards his cabin to think. _And why would it be linked to Sheba? How he found her…but didn't Sheba say he found her in the woods…?_ His thoughts trailed off when he passed Sheba's room. _She made the stardust light up by touching it. Felix and Isaac don't want anyone to know about how she was found. It's linked with a legend. A 'bloody' legend…_ Sighing, he forced the door to his cabin open, shut it, and collapsed onto his bunk, staring at the ceiling for inspiration. _I really need to talk to my sister about this._

Garet's injuries had been worse than the healers had originally thought; the addition of concussion to the variety of other ills – cuts, bruises, a crack in the left upper arm bone, the wide, bloody gash on the back of his head – had lengthened his stay in the infirmary and increased the fear Lady Menardi held for the Third Lady. From what she had gleaned from the beleaguered guard it was the Mercury Adept alone who had attacked him to help the Venus boy escape, and Garet was difficult to physically injure due to his physique and the strength in his bones (_especially the skull_, she privately thought). It definitely increased the possibility of it being true that…that it was _the_ Mariner who now helped the Seekers. The one who'd so impudently helped lead the Venus Uprising a hundred years ago and escape capture by the Mars Clan.

Outside the infirmary she lit a cigarette with her thumb and fixed it into the holder, puffing at it furiously while watching through the glass doors as Karst's ward approached the guard. She couldn't hear the conversation, although it was evident that both visitor and visited were having difficulty being polite and addressing protocol with each other. Menardi knew that the rumours about the two of them had as of yet been unsubstantial lies, but she still felt the urge to separate them and consider doing something about the half-blood girl. Surely it was time the rest of the palace discovered that little secret.

She knew she was just being bitter about the loss of the Third Lady, but couldn't help but wonder how Karst would react to her ward being rejected again by all correctly-brought-up Mars. Ah…but she couldn't bring herself to be so cruel to her sister.

When the attendant healer left the room, Menardi noticed how the air between guard and inspector relaxed slightly – not so much that any normal passer-by would notice, but enough for somebody with the First Lady's sharp, hawkish eyes to detect it. A smile; a quiet comment; laughter; the sort of behaviour you normally wouldn't get away with between ranks was rife in the atmosphere around the two of them. Exhaling smoke, Menardi leaned back in her chair and sharpened her hearing as far as she could to listen to the conversation.

Gah. Well, that _really_ worked. Idiotic infirmary glass.

Instead she contented herself with watching the two Adepts talk for the next ten minutes or so, wondering what they could find to discuss with such joy even if it was suppressed. Eventually, Jenna rose from her stool and nodded a 'goodbye' to her friend, then turned to go. Menardi almost choked on a puff of smoke when she saw Garet's hand dart out and grip Jenna's wrist; struggling with a fit of coughing, she didn't see whatever passed until she recovered enough to see the inspector calmly leaving the infirmary and bow politely to her superior. "Milady."

"Good afternoon," Menardi replied politely with a nod, gesturing with a hand that Jenna should leave. "Doubtlessly you are busy."

"Thank you, Milady," Jenna said. She turned neatly and walked away, along the corridor leading towards the main audience chambers.

With a final glance shot at Garet, now lying back on his bed and watching the bare, expressionless ceiling with listless patience, Menardi stood, extinguished the cigarette with a finger, and followed her.

Sheba wrapped and unwrapped her fingers around the little glass phial, passed it between her hands, leaned forward to scrutinise it in the candlelight, and eventually sat back on her knees in a state of deep thought. _I really should ask Mia to teach me to read,_ she thought as she placed the little phial on the floorboards with an almost inaudible _clink_. The rectangle of paper stuck to the side of the glass had something…squiggled on it, but with her limited literary ability it was impossible to decipher it. _I'll ask Felix to read it when he and Isaac come back._

It was lonely without one of them nearby, but the two Venus Adepts had discovered that Ivan had squirreled a chunk of stardust onto the ship and had gone to deal with it. The Jupiter boy hadn't even noticed Isaac help himself to the contents of Ivan's cabin when they'd been talking less than half an hour ago. And with that crystal gone, one of the trio from the Venus sector's secrets would remain that way, as long and Ivan and Mia kept their mouths shut about the lightshow in the mines. Sheba felt an apprehensive shudder run along her spine and tickle her thighs with the dangerous possibility.

_Still. If I hadn't watched them go off to get rid of it, I wouldn't have found this…_ she mentally told herself, holding up the phial to the light again. She hadn't been able to prise the stubborn, slippery stopper out to get at the contents, but the little white, powdery discs reminded her of a cluster of unripe berries she'd almost eaten once when she'd got lost in the sector when she was younger. _Wonder what it was doing outside Mariner's cabin, though? He's been better since Felix came back. I thought his memory was back._

"Sheba? Would you like a drink?"

The Jupiter girl hurriedly got to her feet and span around to face Mia, stuffing the phial into a pocket quickly. The older girl had been in a haggard state since the discovery of the Mars girl on the ship a few days ago, but she seemed better when she smiled at Sheba. "Yeah, go on. Is the Mars any better now?"

Mia sighed as they walked along the corridor towards the galley, loose strands of her pale blue hair stumbling over her shoulders and front. "At least she's eating now. And she's stopped the muttering." They both shivered at that, remembering the incomprehensible murmuring that seemed to pollute the space the Mars occupied. Combined with the…look in the girl's eyes, so glazed with anger it almost cut through Sheba's skin the first time she'd gone to check on the Mars, it made the Lady far more frightening than they'd anticipated. "But she's still not actually talking to me. Tea?"

"Please." Sheba settled in a chair and slipped the phial out of her pocket and onto the table. "I thought she'd demand to be released and try to fight us, but she's just stayed there. It's frightening." The noise the phial made as she rolled it across the stretch of table between her hands was some distraction from the thought of the Mars' next to psychotic, vaguely deranged glare. _Rattlerattlerattleclinktmprattle…_

Turning away from the kettle at the sound, Mia frowned at the phial's steady if rickety movement across the aging oak and felt the frown dig deeper into her forehead when she saw the white contents. "Where did you find that?"

Holding up the phial and eyeing the Angelical Healer for verification (a nod), Sheba shrugged with one shoulder. "It was rolling about on the floor outside Mariner's room a while back, so I picked it up. Dunno what's in it, though." She dropped the phial onto the Mercury girl's outstretched palm and watched inquisitively as Mia managed to yank the stopper out and pour some of the discs onto her other hand. In the background, Sheba vaguely registered a diminutive _hiss_ that she presumed was from outside. Probably Ivan getting annoyed about the cottony-grey outlook for the evening.

Mia's frown might have been able to mine for ore in her head by the time she'd finished inspecting the contents of the phial and had tipped them back into their container. Peering at the label didn't help make the furrows in her forehead fill themselves in, either. "These are…some kind of painkiller. Mostly willow bark, but…I think there might be some opium in there, and lots of other stuff I don't recognise." Even her serene eyes were affected by the confusion of concern and lack of understanding, making them ripple continually like a pond suddenly pummelled by storm-rain. "Outside _Mariner's_ room?"

"Yes. What's a painkiller? And opium?"

"Uh…a painkiller suppresses pain – have you ever had a headache? If you chew willow bark, it dulls the pain. The more-trained Angelical Healers can make tablets like these out of willow bark," she explained, holding up the phial between thumb and forefinger for further effect. "Opium…it's also a painkiller, and it's used as a mild anaesthetic sometimes if surgeons have to operate on someone." (Sheba hid her confusion at the word 'anaesthetic' and decided to ask someone else about it later) "But it's also addictive, and if someone takes too much of it…they enter a kind of stupor and become dependant on it." _I just hope that these somehow got out of the medicine kit and that they're not Mariner's…that would be…_bad_ if they were._

The hissing noise was more prominent now, drifting decisively into Sheba's ears and forcing her to listen. Her glance out of the porthole confirmed that it wasn't the sound of wintry rain slamming into the ground by way of hello; standing up, she opened the door and gazed out into the corridor, wondering what the noise was. "Can you hear that hiss?" she said to Mia when she shut the door again, bemused.

"What hiss?"

"Never mind, then."

"Wait, you mean…_that_ hiss?"

They both paused for a moment, listening to the crescendo of sound. "Yes, _that_ hiss." Footsteps – hurried, frequent but quiet – burst into their ears, followed shortly by Ivan's voice saying, "Hey, has anyone – agh!" and the noise of something large hitting the floor or the wall –

Sheba flung the door open to see Ivan yanking himself off the floor and a flash of orange vanish outside. "Oh no –"

"I'll go after her!" Ivan shouted, brushing dust off his clothes rapidly and bolting out of the door to the outside. He vaulted the edge of the ship, landing neatly in a crouch, and snagged his eyes on the Mars escapee's vibrant, shadow-tinged ginger hair disappearing into the forest, darting between the starving trees expertly. "Ugh…she's quick," Ivan murmured to himself darkly, risking an upward glance at the sky that threatened to unleash razor-bladed rain upon Angara. "Just…not quick enough for me to not catch her," he added, speeding up and following the woman's trail through the forest. Speed had always been Ivan's forte, especially with the threat of rain on the tree-strewn horizon.

While Mia tried to explain to Mariner through the door about what had happened, Sheba padded along the corridor to the cabin that had been occupied by the Mars. The melted lock didn't go unnoticed, considering that the metal had messily trickled down the wood and pooled in a splodge of dull grey near the bottom of the door. Stepping into the room, she felt her eyes widen with shock when she saw the wall next to the bunk. The wood was…almost daubed with etchings scratched deeply into it – bizarre shapes clawed up the wall, tangling with each other, cut so deeply into the wood they appeared to be one with it. Sheba recognised crude thorns and what looked like leaves or petals climbing up the deepest lines…

No, the deepest lines were in the corner where the Mars' head would have been…

Clambering onto the bunk, Sheba reached out her hand and traced the shapes in the corner with a finger. Questions rose higher in her consciousness the more her finger followed the lines. _Did she use her nails to do this?_ was one of them, and the possibility of that being the case made Sheba shudder again. However, the main one she spoke aloud.

"Eyes…?"


	16. New Mission

Well…here we go, next chapter…it's been almost a year since I started this fic! My, time has flown…well, it'd be nice if I could get another chapter out on the first birthday of this fic, so I'll give it my best shot. And dear me, Sheba does have ominous dreams…

- - -

New Mission

She was fast.

The Lady had flung off her over robe five minutes into the run, letting it be caught by the thin, pleading branches of the trees; when Ivan noticed the maroon material snagging on slender twigs he tried to swallow the knot that'd built up in his throat and continue following her, but couldn't help wonder how far she'd got ahead. Judging from the tracks left behind by the dash, she was incredibly light on her feet – almost as light as Ivan. And that meant she was definitely faster than he'd originally gauged her to be.

He skidded on a slippery mound of decaying leaves and desperately tried to rectify himself to avoid losing speed. Not good. He couldn't even see her hair now, and the tracks were thinning out as the Lady eased into her running gait and was able to accelerate further and almost zing through the forest. _The Mars really are something else,_ Ivan thought as he adjusted to new terrain, wet, glistening leaves giving way to a muddy but firmer dirt track. _If I can't find her, then she'll end up getting back to the citadel eventually, and now she knows some of our faces that's not going to be good. But the fact she's not dropped speed at all…what kind of training do the Mars do? Her endurance is insane…_

Subconsciously, he wiped sweat from his face and followed the turn in the path along with the tracks. Strange; she wasn't going in the right direction for the citadel at all, but heading out towards the marshy grassland that separated the small, tranquil town of Vault from the madness and imminent danger of the citadel, the supposed 'jewel' in Angara's crown. Well, she couldn't possibly know that she was running straight into the kind of environment that'd become a hindrance as soon as the rain started… _Agh. The rain. I'm going to get so wet if it starts raining now…well, at least there's some kind of consolation this time. If she steps in the mud, _he thought as a single dribble of water was spat from the sky, _I'll be able to track her by ear. And even if she _is_ a Lady, you can't beat us Seekers for survival out in the wild._

This time the rain didn't attack the ground like it had promised to, but the smashed oath was an important, precious advantage that Ivan could seize control of. Concentrating as he sped onwards in the same direction as the Lady, the Jupiter youth banished the irrational fear of damp from his mind and delved inside, seeking the psynergetic tempest brewing violently within himself and grasping tightly to single threads of it. Nonetheless, the single threads were all he needed to sharpen his auditory perception. They were all that was necessary to catch the Mars.

Within ten minutes the Lady broke out of the forest and entered the grassland, feeling the rain patter to the ground around her and drip damply onto her body. A rivulet of water coursed down her back where her ponytail ended and formed an estuary for rain; the sensation of shocking cold even in the midst of November heightened her awareness of danger. Seekers. She'd been caught by them but had managed to escape, and there was one of them on her tail. Shaking him off was the sole option. It would be…unbearably degrading to believe that _she_, the Third Lady, had been unable to avoid one of the scions of disorder in the Empire. She would never live it down.

_Eyes_

The Thir – Ka – the Lady forced her eyes open to banish the image that rose unbidden from her mind. The three pairs flashed before her vision whenever she allowed her eyelids to close over her eyes – it had been like this since her…ca-ca-ca-

The word refused to be spoken. A disgraceful word. She should never have had to be one to use it in reference to herself. Ugh. The taste of it welling inside her mouth was sour, sticky, a lemony taste layered with bitter persimmon. It made her want to vomit. No, no, no! There was no possibility that _she_ could have been – have been – _Calm down. Just run. Get back. Get back, then get back at them._

She was drenched by the rain and terrain within the space of another two minutes as she rocketed across the sodden landscape. Surely, surely she'd thrown her pursuer off by now. Her speed was matched only by Karst; on this kind of ground it would be difficult to follow her without getting stuck in part of the marshy land. Whoever it was wouldn't be able to catch her now. That was for certain. That _was_ definite. Her breath misted the air but dissipated quickly into invisibility as she paused for breath and tried to find the spires of the Mars sector buildings above the tops of the forest's trees, hoping for a glimpse of anything that looked familiar…wishing to see one of those dragons that climbed each spire and gazed longingly into the sky…

A sound behind her made her spin around. Her fingers curled into vicious claws, little flashes of scarlet flame touching the tips despite the rain; even with the disadvantageous weather, the spells comprising her arsenal of attacks would easily dispel anybody idiotic enough to follow her. From what she'd sensed during her time…_there_ with the Seekers, only a couple of them had any real power that could match her. Wary, she flicked a handful of fireballs in different directions in the hopes of chasing her pursuer into her attacking range.

Ivan withdrew the psynergy he'd fed into his ears and sprang away from the sphere of fire that would have otherwise singed him. A patch of heather withered underneath the hunger of the flames that consumed it with insatiable greed. Without the constant patter of the rain and the general wetness of this area the whole patch of grass would have been devoured; raising a single eyebrow at the weakening flame, Ivan felt the hilt of his rapier come into his right hand and slashed it experimentally through the soft downpour.

The rain parted where the blade cut.

Glancing out from his hiding place, Ivan considered the options he had for dealing with the unmoving, wary Mars Lady. He pinched his psynergy with thumb and forefinger mentally and coiled it into the shape he required before flinging his unoccupied hand upwards. "Tornado!"

She stepped back a couple of paces, glaring at the violent whorl of winds as it vanished upwards and preparing a spell of her own. Cupping her hands together she felt the familiar brilliant rush as her power flowed easily into her palms and pooled in the miniature well while her mind prepared. _A mid-level spell first. Then I'll go for the throat with a more powerful one._ Yes. That would work. That _would_ definitely work. Words slithered from her mouth in a hiss: "Serpent Fume."

The roughly dragon-shaped plume of yellow-tinged amber flame zinged into the sky, colliding with the remains of the psynergetic tornado and sending clumps of fire ricocheting through the air, illuminating the dingy land with the force of the explosion. Glassy green eyes lit up by the flying flames, the Thir – Ka – the Lady span a full circle, daring her tracker to come out of hiding. She'd take it down. No Seeker had gender – they were all _it_s.

Nobody was there. She exhaled shortly with confusion again and again as she tried to discover the source of the wind-based spell that'd been flung upwards near to her. Still nobody there. Maybe she'd hit it with one of her attacks and finished it off. That had to be it…

She barely blocked the blade with her arm when it unexpectedly lashed out at her. Wielding it was a boy she didn't recognise – short, blond, purple eyes, soaked – who seemed to disappear when she flung the Fireball psynergy at his face. The Lady didn't dare check the damage done to the armour strapped onto her arms and readied another spell to hurl at the boy when he next got close enough.

The blade sliced through her remaining skirts now her over robe was gone, easily tearing the leather binding more armour to her shins and nicking the back of her left leg. Blood leaked from it when she moved, hotly burning down her skin. The Fireball spell whammed into the boy this time, hurling him several feet and dumping him in the thin, watery mud. She strode towards the boy with the psynergy only she could master brimming just beneath her skin and coming threateningly close to overflowing from her fingertips; the Seeker didn't move even when she kicked him over onto his back, so she began to ram her hand downwards through the dripping air towards his chest –

"Storm Ray!"

Ivan jumped to his feet while the Lady reeled away, coughing blood from the harsh impact of close-range lightning on her midriff, enhanced by the storm bubbling in the clouds. Locking onto another gust of psynergy from within, he whisked it into the form of another rapidly-spiralling whirlwind and propelled it towards the Mars as she struggled to straighten and summon another series of flames from her core. He followed the tornado towards the girl, eyes sinking into the points Mia had taught him about and readying the pommel of the rapier to slam it into those vulnerable spots the moment the spell had knocked her down. As long as it worked he'd be able to get her back to the ship pretty quickly and then they'd have to find a way of keeping her without her melting locks again…

Something began to smoulder the moment he collided with the Mars. Her hands managed to catch the pommel of his sword before he could hit her anywhere. The rain hardened and bit at the swampy earth as Ivan suddenly noticed what was going on –

"Gah!"

The Lady was on her feet immediately and glared down her nose at the burning Jupiter Seeker, one hand held up to the sky and filling with ominous garnet light as the boy rolled away, dropping his blade and shrieking with pain in the process. "Hurts, doesn't it?" the Lady called to him over the sound of nettle- and thorn-like rain knifing the ground. She barely heard the boy's next scream over the noise the sizzle of his flesh made…and the oddly alluring scent of burning cloth and refined pain…

Sitting back on her knees while the Jupiter child writhed in the mud, no longer able to cry out, the Lady allowed her psynergy to gather in her other hand to deal the final blow. Just like Menardi had said: killing was easy. Very easy. She didn't even feel any guilt at all…

Something struck her on her shoulder and sent her careening into the mire at least ten yards from her victim. Not even swearing, the Mars looked up through her unkempt curtain of now-loose hair saturated with clinging, frosty mud and grime to find this new enemy and began to push herself up onto her hands and knees. "Where are you?"

"Right here." The next _wham_ knocked the Mars even further from the whimpering Jupiter Seeker and left a crescent-shaped cerise mark that swiftly plastered itself to the left side of her face. The Lady rolled onto her back and lashed out with her legs at the unseen attacker, feeling her feet collide with something muscular and stocky. Her right eye cracked open enough to see something vaguely female under a grey oilskin shimmering with wetness that still bucketed out of the sky – something that was gathering what looked like…like…lightning…in its hand… "That's the special attack of the Third Lady, if I'm not mistaken. So I hope you don't mind me taking you hostage in exchange for almost killing my brother."

The Lady was aware of sudden, excruciating pain spasming through her body and leaving her immobile, followed by a dim voice saying a name, a name she couldn't, couldn't hear, over and over again, and, and, and then, and then and then and then and then…

Black.

- - -

"Plants?"

"That's what they look like," Sheba told her brother. When Felix and Isaac had returned, Mariner had caught Isaac and Mia and taken them into the forest as backup for Ivan, leaving the other two behind to keep an eye on the ship. "It's really creepy…she didn't even have anything she could've cut into the walls with, so she must've used her nails. But they didn't look long enough for her to do something like that…"

Felix coaxed the yellow tie out of his hair and twisted it between his fingers, his eyes still fixed on Sheba's. "When she was interrogating me in her tower, there were an awful lot of plants up there…isn't that odd for a Mars? They were just all over the place." When he shook his head, his dark hair settled on his shoulders and lengthened the shadows cast across his face. "And here I was thinking the Mars Clan thought it's degrading to be surrounded by anything to remind them of the Venus Clan."

"You want to see it? The carvings, I mean."

"No. I can imagine the kind of damage _that_ Mars can do perfectly well, thank you. She threw a plant pot at my head the first day of interrogation." He pointed to a couple of scabs still clinging defiantly to his cheeks. "Not nice. Though I suppose I had it coming."

Sheba stood up from her chair and peered at her brother's face, scrutinising the damage done. "Not the worst you've had," she said finally, her face suddenly becoming overcast like the heavens before a storm. "You just have to look at your back for the worst you've had…"

"Or here," he reminded her, grabbing onto one of her hands and making her fingers touch the scar on his right temple. "That's the one that hurts. Whenever the Mars get close, it's always this one that hurts." Sheba moved her hand away from the hidden, loathed mark and instead cupped the side of her brother's face with her palm, unable to not notice the pained sorrow that welled up in his dark irises as he spoke. "I…I won't lose you like I lost her. I definitely won't let you get taken away…" Recognising the faltering, not-quite-suppressed trickle of the same woe snaking into his voice, Felix shut his eyes and mouth and let his head rest in Sheba's palm. "I'm so weak."

_What was it Isaac said about the mark?_ Sheba thought. _What was it he told me when Felix was recovering during the famine? Uh…_ Brow creased in concentration, she barely heard the shouts coming from the deck and the _clump_ing of boots hitting the boards at a run. _Oh! That was it. 'It's not a physical problem that his brand causes. It's done something to his mind.' Yes. That was definitely it…_

"Sheba! Felix! Help me clear this stuff off the table!"

Mia's urgent voice edged with high-pitched panic brought them both to their senses. Standing up and twisting the band back into his hair, Felix caught the terrified Mercury girl by the shoulders. "What happened?"

"It's Ivan," she blurted out in reply, tearing away and grabbing armfuls of cloth maps off the table to toss onto the chairs. "The Mars –" She began scrabbling through the cupboards while the others finished clearing things off the table "– she managed to use some kind of psynergy that, that, that almost…" The pause was enough for her to clasp her hand around a roll of bandages and straighten up, dragging a variety of different-sized coloured glass bottles from her pockets and tucking any wandering strands of wet hair behind her ears. "…he's in a critical condition."

A drenched mop of spiky golden-blond hair entered at a run, followed by the rest of Isaac. The injured, comatose Jupiter Adept was practically dropping out of his arms; when he managed to rest Ivan on the table, Isaac stood back immediately and dripped quietly onto the floor, one hand planted immovably over his mouth and nose. He was desperately restraining the urge to vomit.

Biting down on her lower lip so hard she almost drew blood, Mia ripped off the remains of Ivan's cloak and tunic and felt her breath hiss inwards in disgust at the state of the boy's chest. "You three had better go before I treat him…it won't be something for your eyes…"

Felix grabbed one of Isaac's arms; Sheba shortly followed suit, and between them they half-dragged, half-helped the Venus Adept outside into the rain. Steering him to one side of the deck, they watched him throw up over the side and stand there hammered by the rain, hair practically slathered flat to his face and clothes stuck to his skin like leaves to sap bled from trees. Eventually straightening up, he inhaled slowly and deeply as he turned to face the two of them and tried to speak, still suppressing another wave of nausea. "That was…just…it, it…"

"The Third's special psynergy has always been like that. It's one of the reasons for there to be so few of them." The Revealer's grave expression was enough to draw a sort of steely silence when the three from the Venus sector caught sight of her. "As far as we know, the power is named 'Burn', and it does exactly that. It's a close-range attack for inflicting maximum damage to unsuspecting opponents."

"Where is she?"

The Revealer glanced at Felix before jerking her head slightly in the direction of the winter woodlands. "The Third is being…detained. More for her safety than anybody else's."

Sheba frowned, tested the Revealer's mind with the ripple of psynergy she dared use, and then gave up and spoke instead. "…her safety?"

"Clearly you three haven't met the full brunt of Mariner's temper yet," the leader of the Seekers replied, suddenly tempering her face with a distant, slightly mournful smile that fused with her eyes. "I'm afraid that even the power of one of the Mars gentry doesn't come near that man's true strength – the Third would be…foolish, to say the least, if she were to fight him." Rain pattered on the deck's timbers, drowning the ensuing silence with little difficulty. Noticing the puzzled looks (one of them obvious, another guarded, the third still nauseous), the Revealer shook her head and sprayed further wetness onto the wood before speaking again. "Let's just say that he's been around a long time."

Around his stifled queasiness Isaac managed to say, "Well, that's good if it means we're safe."

Felix's eyes had gained a strange glint despite their hardness when he muttered something that was inaudible to all bar Sheba above the cacophonic rain. "I wonder how long you mean."

"But he looks younger than you," the Jupiter girl pointed out as she pretended to not hear her brother's comment.

The Revealer seemed almost stuck for a moment; behind his queasy exterior, Isaac noticed the almost completely hidden sparks of disturbance and shocked realisation that the older woman emitted momentarily before returning to her previous demeanour. "I'm old for my age, and he's young for his," she replied somewhat cryptically. The statement nestled itself snugly into the section of the two Venus Adepts' minds devoted to doubt and wariness, but was covered up in Isaac's head with his docile façade while it intermingled with Felix's other knowledge of the Mercury Adept.

Sheba broke the silence that followed. "Wait…why are you here?"

"Me?" the reply was slightly startled. "R-recently, something's come up and I need –"

_Flump!_

All four of them turned at the sound to see the Mars' body limply lying on the sodden deck, her hands bound behind her back by liquid cuffs. Metallic _clang_s announced Mariner's return as he climbed the ladder back up to the ship; when he reached the deck itself, he knelt next to the unconscious girl's body and used two fingers to check her pulse before addressing the Adepts who stood there, waiting. "That's her dealt with for the time being. I'll have to get Shade to keep that barrier up at all times to stop her from escaping, though."

"The djinni?…was there only one?"

Mariner nodded at the Revealer. "If any of the others had been left I would have taken them too, but…_he_ got to them first." The three from the Venus sector suppressed shudders when they noticed the strength of the hate and regret no longer disguised in the Mercury's eyes. "The other elemental spirits, though…they should be reclaimed soon, now that _he_'s…"

The sentence hung in the rainy air…

Neither of the older Seekers spoke as they proceeded with taking the Mars into the belly of the ship and considering how to properly confine her.

After some minutes had passed, Isaac began to feed a corner of his drenched scarf into his mouth again and chewed on the old material apprehensively. "Y…you two…you both saw that, right?" he eventually mumbled around the fabric, his blue eyes losing the little sparkle they had regained as he replayed the scene over again in his mind.

For once, the older Venus boy didn't apprehend him for eating the scarf and nodded slowly instead. He didn't feel like talking. What he'd seen had given him the same shivering feeling he'd had when the Mars Lady had been captured – the fear was almost rife inside him. A quick glance in his sister's direction told him that she was definitely uneasy about the whole thing, if not completely frightened out of her wits.

Licking her lips that had gone dry despite the rain, Sheba exhaled and heard her breath quiver as she tried to calmly form sentences with fragmented words. "…when…'he'…was mentioned," she began, wondering privately if this was how her brother and her friend felt when dealing with problems, "it looked like…it looked like Mariner's wrist started bleeding…"

- - -

"You mean – Gondowan?"

"Well, considering that Kibombo is in the centre of that continent, yes."

A pause. The First Lord clicked his tongue before speaking again. "If memory serves me, that's barely two days from the Gondowan Citadel…have the Lords and Ladies there not acted yet? Tch…such foolishness…" Despite the thick, dense wood and the heaviness of the door, Saturos' footsteps were still perfectly clear as he paced the room. The sound of him abruptly stopping and the rough-edged _swish_ of his cloak turning as he did were just as equally audible to the guard standing outside the First Lord's chambers with a tight halo of bandages wrapped around his forehead.

Time waits for no man, especially the injured. Garet had spent three weeks having his injuries treated and was desperate to make up for the information he'd missed during his confinement in the stale, white, glass-infested infirmary. Thankfully, now the only injury remaining was the gradually-healing gash on the back of his head. _Man, and even that doesn't hurt much anymore. Guess the healers aren't as bad at what they do as I thought. But three weeks…I know Jenna's been having a tough time with Menardi and Karst, an' she's been kinda worried about that doll. Wait, why is she worried about that again…?_

A few minutes later, when Saturos flung the door open dismissively to allow Menardi to exit, the two of them were presented with a frowning, bemused Garet with his head cocked to one side, arms folded and his eyes staring off into space, oblivious to his superiors before him.

The First Lord and Lady exchanged slightly bewildered looks.

"Garet." Menardi addressed the boy sharply but extracted no reaction. With a second, exasperated glance at Saturos, she repeated herself. "Garet. _Garet_!" The third call managed to yank the guard out of his thoughts and snap to attention. "Hmph. You get far too much leeway for your own good," the First Lady said.

"Huh, I guess so –" Garet stopped himself abruptly and forced his most Mars-like body language and speech into action. "Yes, Milady. Forgive me for my foolishness." _Oh, man, right in front of the First Lord too…I'm gonna be in so much trouble later…_

Saturos allowed a discreet, frighteningly polite smile to cross his face momentarily before returning to his usual malevolent expression and managing somehow to look down his nose at the guard despite the fact that Garet was almost as tall as the First Lord himself. "Yes. I did send for you, didn't I? However, it certainly wasn't so you could procrastinate outside my rooms." With a sharp turn of his head, he inclined it to Menardi. "Send me those reports as soon as possible. It would not do for our neighbouring citadel to lose face because of those upstart rebels and that idiot witch doctor."

Menardi's reply was accompanied by a smile directed at Saturos that made Garet feel increasingly uncomfortable as he stood there waiting for his orders. "I'll bring them myself shortly. The messengers in the palace are…too inquisitive for my liking. And they talk too much," she added flatly. Inside, the guard winced at the thought of possibly losing a good source of gossip and information. "Anything else?"

"Ah…" The First Lord looked genuinely thoughtful as he folded his arms, the spines and scales on them shifting slightly with worrying _ka-klickshink_ noises, and allowed his eyes to close. "The Izumo file. We have a lot to do with that…the locals there have been incredibly uncooperative in terms of this treaty." Crimson eyes opening, he eyed the First Lady with what appeared to be respect. "And the Atteka file." There was a moment of hesitation from Menardi before she nodded and swept away along the corridor; Saturos suppressed a sigh and glanced back at the uncertain guard. "Now then…"

"Milord?"

"Don't interrupt me before I've started."

Garet hung his head, realised he shouldn't have, and tried to snap back to attention. The hunted expression he accidentally rammed on his face didn't improve the fact he looked even more pathetically un-Mars-like than normal. "Forgive me, Milord."

"Take this," the First Lord ordered, briskly tugging a scroll from somewhere in his armour and holding it out imperiously to Garet. "Ensure that inspector you're always with gets it," he continued as Garet cautiously accepted the parchment from the Lord's stony grip. It was clearly just-written; the parchment was too pale to be of any real age, and it was still slightly damp in places where the tar-coloured ink hadn't properly dried. "You two are being sent to Kolima."

Garet bit his lower lip and couldn't stop the frown burrowing into his forehead. Geography had always been one of those areas he'd been terrible at, something that in most cases would definitely be looked down upon. For him, though, it'd been considered typical. "Kolima…but that's…" He absently scratched the side of his head. "Uh…that's past the Goma Range!" Dropping his arm to his side, he spoke again. "It's gotta be two weeks' walk away at least! We'd get there an' it'd be nearly Midwinter!"

"All the more reason for you two to go as soon as possible," the Lord replied. "The closer the palace gets to the festivities, the more people will _talk_. Personally I wouldn't want my sister to lose face over gossip about me, even if she _is_ absent."

_He has a sister? I never knew that,_ Garet thought after bowing to the First Lord and taking his leave. _Didn't seem like the kinda guy to have much in the way of family…_

The actual meaning of Saturos' comment punched through his skull and into his mind like a crossbow bolt through plate armour. When he was about to talk to Jenna, of course.

- - -

_Locked in stone and overflowing with oppressive power, the dragon wept tears of fire –_

"_When the star fell this time…"_

_The sky tumbled around her, the wind buffeting her small body in all directions –_

"…_it fell straight into Man's arms…"_

_Something smashed into thousands of tiny fragments. The man hidden by the night's shadow raised his arms and called on his destructive powers again, sending them towards the next statue along –_

"…_Man had learned from his mistakes of long ago and managed to protect the star from __those who would use its power…"_

_A cemetery…a destroyed city…the young boy kneeling before the gravestones, hands ragged from digging, eyes squeezed shut but still pouring tears…mocking laughter…yellow irises brimming with irrepressible woe and hatred –_

"…_but Man knew that eventually the beings that sought the star would come for it and that he would be destroyed…despite this, he continued to protect that which had become so dear to him…"_

_Suddenly corrupted, the dragons rose and hurled fire across the land –_

"…_in the end, when conflict came, the star was safe…Man's fate was unknown…"_

_This time, the void consumed him faster, the blackness eating away at him and making him fade away with such speed she couldn't even bring herself to cry out anymore._

"…_but most say that Man died…"_

Sheba's eyes opened slowly. Prickly sweat coated her entire body; her nightgown was sodden and clung to her skin, and as she shivered from the memory of the nightmare-thing she felt more sweat trickle almost tortuously down her spine and seep into the sheets. Carefully rolling onto her back, she grunted with effort as she propped herself up on the pillow that remained. The other, along with the bedcover, was lying somewhere on the floor nearby, flung off as she burned in her sleep from fear. Her quivering hands found the edge of the mattress and gripped it so tightly there were little indents left where her fingers had pressed the thing when she eventually let go.

She needed a new way of calming down afterwards.

A little calmer now, if still shivering with heat, she flung her legs over the side of her bunk and stood. The floor was cool against her feet. When she moved, she left sticky footprints in her wake. If she'd been her normal self, or with her brother, she'd probably have reacted to the prints with disgust…

"Ah…"

Opening the porthole brought some relief from the inferno inside her body. Soft night wind wafted over her, driving some heat out of her system and silently destroying it before leaving again. Sheba stuck one arm out of the circular window and fiddled her fingers, stroking the midnight air currents and feeling what little psynergetic power she had connecting to them in greeting. But the relief was fleeting; she could feel the humidity rising gradually as the currents spiralled upwards and began to form clouds…

_Welcoming Ivan back outside, right?_ The Jupiter boy had recovered from the burns a couple of days ago and would be back to normal work tomorrow. _Heh. He'll be hopping mad._

She was reluctant to close the window. For several minutes afterwards, as she slumped to her knees and watched the moon's silvery light streaming through the leafless trees, she was unable to stop her mind returning to that dream again…

…_it's the fourth time it's come in two weeks._ The first two times she'd had to run into her brother's room and curl up next to him. As ever, he didn't ask questions about the dream, instead letting her stay there as long as necessary and waiting for her to calm down properly. The third time she'd managed to control herself. This time… _I…think it's getting worse each time I see it, _she thought sadly as she stood up again. _I'm…_ she steeled herself for the next thought. _I'm going to have to tell someone about it soon…_

The heat had returned by now, worse than before. It was almost unbearable…

_There's something ironic about having to strip in late November because of the temperature_, Sheba thought, and yanked the gown over her head. _Ew…this is horrible._ She wrung out the nightie, wrinkling her nose with distaste at the amount of sweat that dripped out of the soggy material. _Everyone else complains about being cold at night. I can't even cool down if I stand here stark naked. Maybe I should pour a bucket of cold water over my head, then sit outside for a couple of hours in the rain._

Actually, the bucket of water plan didn't sound too bad. In fact, she didn't even need the bucket – she could just take the five minute walk to the waterfall pool and plunge in for a bit. Quickly, she tugged the still-damp nightgown back over her head and opened the door as quietly as she could. Surely there wasn't anybody else awake at this time of night. Even the creepy Mars Lady who'd thrown a plant pot at Felix was probably asleep. _A plant pot. Hm. Didn't we help pack up the clay stuff for the potters in the citadel a few times?_

She was about to push open the door to the outside when she heard voices coming from the meeting room.

"…seriously, I don't understand your problem with explaining this to me."

"I can't explain it myself, Revealer."

"I should be glad for you, but I can't help but…well…it's just so strange…"

"Yes. Even things from a hundred years ago barely hurt anymore."

_A hundred years ago?! What in the world – how is that even – a hundred years ago! Nobody can live that long!_

"I almost thought you were going to say five hundred years then."

"Ha. Everything between the Uprising and the…" Mariner's voice trailed off, almost as if he'd just realised he'd said something he shouldn't have.

"And the…?"

Mariner had turned silent. Taking the moment to recover from the shock of the sheer amount of time that had been mentioned, Sheba crept closer to the door and listened even more intently to whatever was coming next. "Nothing. It hurts to go back that far."

A sigh escaped from the Revealer's mouth. "One day I may have to read your mind to find out the truth about you. All I know is that you and _he_ are linked together, and that something in your Clan…made it break…"

"You know full well your predecessors already tried that and failed."

"Because the spring water veiled your mind. But you're not drinking that anymore." The Revealer's voice had gained a tone that hinted at threatening but concealed the possibility well. "Your knowledge of the beginning of all this could be vital to the future, Mariner…why the Acolytes were destroyed, the role _he_ played in all this that still makes you suffer. Don't lie; I saw your wrist bleed earlier."

"Hama…"

"Out of sheer respect for you I won't attempt such a thing," the Revealer – _Hama, was it?_ Sheba thought – replied. "But nonetheless…if the beginning of all this is known, we can stop it from happening again. I assure you, Mariner, I'll discover the truth eventually. I intend to see Kraden in the abandoned village soon, and he's recently –"

"_Don't remind me about where _he_ is._" The unexpected hissed sentence startled the eavesdropping girl into flinching. "As for the sage…"

"I have no intention to take you and your squad with me. Only the Mars."

"…the Mars?"

"You can hardly travel to one of our strongholds with a prisoner like the first Third Lady in a hundred years onboard the ship." Hama probably shook her head at Mariner. "From what I understand, _he_ is almost finished with the translations. When _he_'s done, you'll be in danger. I'm sending this squad out of his range so none of you are hurt."

Sheba hung on for the final few exchanges, her mind preparing to whirr as soon as she knew just a little more… "How far do you mean?" Mariner finally queried. "Apojii? Tundaria? Anywhere much closer, and if _he_ does find us, the two Venus boys will…"

"Not quite that far," Hama interjected firmly, cutting off Mariner's trailing sentence. "But Kibombo is far enough, correct?"

The pause while Mariner mulled the possibility over was incredibly unnerving for the listener.

"Just about. It's close enough to Magma Rock to be safe. As much as _he_'s supported the Empire and the Mars over the years, the heat there is probably enough to drive that melodramatic bastard over the edge…"

Hama chuckled. "Dear me. You sound more like us every time we meet. It's rare to hear that kind of language from you."

As the conversation abruptly turned in a completely different direction, Sheba returned to her room, her dunk in the waterfall pool forgotten. Sitting on her bunk, she absently twisted handfuls of her nightie and replayed what she'd overheard in her head, trying to extract something other than her own amazement from it.

_I think I might have just heard something I wasn't meant to…_


	17. Broken

Ohaigaizlongtimenoseeyah? *cowers* Please review~

- - -

Broken

"Ow!"

Garet muttered swearwords under his breath and tried to stand up. He was abso-bloody-lutely certain that the last fall had jolted his spine, or at least broken _something_ inside his body. For something like the thirtieth time that day, he wanted to curse his complete lack of agility and his bulky build; climbing whopping great trees was _not_ something he was built for. It was damn well _murdering_ his back…and his behind was pretty sore too…

"Come on, Garet. We're nearly there." Jenna waited until she was sure the guard was back on his clumsy, too-big feet before flicking on her body's inner Mars protocol systems and briskly striding away along another of the passages inside the body of the gargantuan tree.

Christmas had come and gone without waiting for the two Mars Adepts to be ready for it; the Midwinter celebrations back in the citadel would be long over by the time the two of them returned, and that certainly wasn't going to be any time soon if Jenna was any judge. It had taken the duo a week to reach Bilibin, setting off from the citadel the day after Saturos had given them their orders, and barely two days after that the passage through the Goma Range back to central Angara had been blockaded by immovable drifts of snow. The weather had not been kindly after that initial snowstorm, either.

"Ooh, my _back_…" Garet complained, rubbing the small of his back to ease some of the kinks out of his spine as he followed his long-time friend. After discovering the rumours about Jenna and himself, Garet had suppressed his feelings for the slightly younger girl and was endeavouring to see her as nothing more than a friend…no matter how much the fact he was bare-facedly lying to himself gnawed like a starving, greedy rat at his conscience. _Man, I mean it's not even like she's ever gonna feel the same way about me. She's never even gonna hook up with anyone. Mind's always on the job. _Always._ An' she's not exactly gonna share the fact she's half-Venus with just _anyone.

"Garet? Keep up!"

"I'm comin', I'm comin'." He sped up a little in a half-hearted attempt to catch up with Jenna. "Hey, um, Jenna, could you slow down a bit?" he asked after turning the corner and finding his superior ready to turn off down the _next_ corridor. His mouth snapped shut at the reprimanding glare she shot at him. "Aw, Jenna…it's not like there're any other Mars around for miles!"

In reply, Jenna merely sighed. "Nonetheless, Garet, we're still on an assignment. Save your complaints for later, when we're back in Kolima and waiting for the snow to melt."

"But when we're in Kolima, you'll tell me to wait 'til Bilibin, an' then it'll be 'til we're _home,_" he whined in reply, sounding irritatingly childish in Jenna's ears. Honestly. How did she manage to put up with someone so…so completely the opposite of everything the Mars were meant to be? "C'mon, Jen, _please_…"

_Then again,_ Jenna thought, feeling the burning cold thorns of truth stabbing relentlessly into her heart,_ I'm hardly…orthodox. I'm not what I'm meant to be. I'm…_ She swallowed a guilty lump that had risen in her throat like a bucket in a deep puddle. _I'm tainted. So…so wrong._ _I'm lucky to be around Garet, really…he…doesn't mind that I'm dirty…_

She stopped, turning to see the delighted grin that doodled, unstoppable, onto her friend's face as he finally managed to catch up with her. "Ten more minutes, Garet, then we'll talk like normal," she relented, catching Garet's contagious smile. "This tree spirit had better be talkative."

- - -

Seer raked a hand through his blond mop of hair and yawned. As ever, the squad hadn't really celebrated Christmas at all, just found the odd gift to give to each other. This had actually been amusing at times; the trio from the Venus sector clearly still weren't used to the concept of being given things without having to work themselves to the bone for them. Felix's reaction, in particular, to being given something had been particularly hilarious. Seer couldn't remember the last time he'd seen anyone's face change so much in the space of three seconds – the Venus boy had lost all of his sharpness and the shadows had disappeared from his face, leaving him looking like a lost, wide-eyed child.

And that had been from the gift from Wings, a bottle of healing salve. Seer hadn't been around when Mariner had given the dumbstruck Venus boy a new knife to replace the one taken by the Mars.

Well, that'd been a week ago, and now the new year had started. He would be sixteen in February, Wings eighteen in May. With a bit of luck, he'd grow a reasonable amount, too – cracking five foot two was his hopeful aim for the next year. He'd become stronger, mentally and physically, so he could continue with his work for the rebels and be able to further their goals, as well as protect those around him…

…_and myself,_ he thought ruefully, sadly, as he rose from his bunk, dragged on his underwear and trousers, and gloomily frowned at his reflection in the mirror. Three weeks ago, the bandages that had covered his chest had been removed, leaving scars that would last his lifetime behind: five knots of dark scar tissue showing precisely where the Mars had rammed her fingers and thumb into him along with her terrifying psynergy. Prior to the removal of the bandages, he'd been under Wings' intensive care for another week. Apparently, Mariner had decided to…_deal with_ the one who'd inflicted the wounds on his young friend. Seer hadn't seen the Mars woman at all since their short yet incorrigibly frightening battle.

That was one of the better things about the squad uprooting to Gondowan for a few weeks. The Mars wasn't with them.

"Seer?" As usual, the soft, tentative knocks came after the words. "Are you ready?" Wings added, pushing the door open and sighing at the sight of Seer's bare chest. Her tranquil-pond eyes seemed to ripple as the boy hurriedly yanked his shirt and tunic over his head, embarrassed at being seen while inspecting his disfigurement. "Those scars are nothing to be ashamed of," she reminded him gently when his fingers fumbled and he dropped his rapier while trying to attach it to his belt. "Things could have been much worse."

"Wings, I know that," he said, flustered, finally managing to control his sword and scabbard. He quickly picked up his aging, almost toothless comb and used what was left of it to tidy his mussed-up hair, eventually taming the stubborn bit that stuck up at the back. It promptly sprang back up again when he put the comb down, causing him to glower at his reflection and Wings to stifle a giggle. "Oh well," he sighed, twitching the ends of his cloak into place. "Let's get going."

They met the others on the deck: Isaac, beaming at them with his impeccable, indestructible cheer; Sheba, standing calmly between the infectiously bright boy and his dark counterpart, running her hands along her metal-studded wooden staff; Felix, expression veiled by his wind-knotted teak hair; and Mariner, his yellow eyes showing little of the weakness from which he had suffered only a month ago. Seer didn't fail to take note of the fact that Mariner hadn't strapped his sword to his back – it hung at his side in its scabbard – something he'd seen rarely in the past couple of years. He set his face, beginning to understand what sort of mission was going to begin, and considering (at the back of his mind) warning Wings of the…likely outcome of the mission.

Mariner only carried his blade like that if there was probably going to be blood.

All preparations for today's excursion had been made during the past three weeks spent in the secluded area close to the inhospitable, precipitous Kibombo Mountains. They would head in the direction of the citadel, which lay close to Magma Rock, and split into two smaller groups; Seer's own group comprised himself, Wings and Isaac, and their job was to reach the Seeker stronghold in Kibombo itself and relieve the squads stationed there of the precious records on the Acolytes obtained from Magma Rock's inner rooms. As for the other group… _Let's just say I know why Sheba's been practising battle psynergy…_

He knew the correct term for what _they_ were to do was 'diversionary tactics'.

What it actually meant was…too horrible for him to think of at present. He remembered the first time he'd seen Mariner fight when he'd worn the sword at his side. It was something he wished he didn't recall so…graphically…

_There had been a lot of blood. Seer had been flung into a corner by the ferocity of the battle, unable to properly keep up with his enemies, and he was fully aware that Wings was doing little better – he had seen her, mere moments beforehand, tucked in a corner of her own and letting her sheer terror get the better of her as she shakily healed a gaping, dripping wound on her shoulder. But, from that selfsame corner, Seer had a perfect view of what happened when Mariner saw his two charges incapable of battling and…for want of a better word…almost…butchered the entire enemy party._

_Gods, there had been so much blood…and the man's __**eyes**__…like…like…some kind of…evil creature with slits for pupils and a predatory gleam in those amber irises. That look had vanished when the fight had finished, but it still stayed with Seer…_

Just recalling it made him shiver, despite Gondowan's natural heat.

It didn't take a genius to work out why Mariner had chosen to split the squad the way he did, but Seer found it highly discomforting when his trio separated from the others. Of course, the _other_ side to Isaac was probably going to be necessary for the group's assignment, along with the fact his almost luminous smile would like as not disarm any of the more distrusting Seekers. Combining that with Seer's connections and Wings' soothing presence was a master stroke – _Well, if I suddenly found the three of us on my doorstep asking me to give us something, it'd be hard for me to refuse._

"Isaac," Wings said suddenly, jolting Seer from reverie. "Felix and Sheba…they do _know_ what they're going to do?"

"Yep."

She was clearly shocked by how off-handed and careless the Venus boy sounded. "But – surely, Sheba can't be…I mean, Felix going I completely understand, but I've never seen Sheba wanting to do anything, well, violent."

"Let me make this perfectly clear," Isaac replied, one eyebrow rising as he turned his head to address his companions. "You can't exactly grow up in the Venus sector without ending up a bit tough. I mean, sure, me an' Felix kept Sheba out of as much trouble as possible, but…" Somehow, his eyes lost a little of their natural happy lustre, allowing regret to seep through the cracks in the twin sapphires. "You can't be there all the time. At least she's never got lashed for anything, though."

"And you have?" Wings interjected, a light etching of horror imposing on her face. "You…you poor things, all of you…Mars is so…cruel to you…" she whispered when Isaac merely shrugged and nodded at the same time, brushing off the mention of punishment like imaginary lint from his shoulder. "It's…it's…"

Seer reached up and placed a firm hand on her shoulder. "Wings, we can't do anything about what's been done. That's why we're working to change the future from what it looks like it could be." His sincere expression amplified the maturity resounding in his words, making Isaac blink. "Maybe you should go on ahead," the Jupiter boy added with a quiet smile, squeezing the Angelical Healer's shoulder. "Your psynergy's got the upper hand against any Mars guards, after all."

Isaac's smile twisted, knotting up on one side of his face, as soon as he was certain the Mercury girl was out of earshot. "What, you wanna see the mess my back's been in for the last…oh, nine or ten years?" he finally said, almost mockingly, to the unspeaking Seeker. "Don't look at me like that, Seer. Better my back than Felix's."

"I'm not interested in that." The reply was murmured. Soft, soft, soft. Oh so careful… "Isaac, I know that Sheba wasn't originally going to be going on that sort of mission. She would've come with you and Wings in my place."

"She's the one who asked to go with them." Isaac shrugged again, his infectious brightness dimming as he reluctantly allowed his more serious side to appear. "Personally, I don't get why either. What shook me was that Felix didn't mind her going along with them – I know he always knew what sort of diversionary stuff they'll be doing." He toyed with the knot in his scarf as he thought of what he could risk saying next. "Huh. Not my call in the end, though, is it? It's all up to Mariner."

Seer exhaled in a huff of minor annoyance. "After what happened to him during October and November I'm not so sure I'm happy about that fact…"

A third shrug. A flash of naturally white teeth. "Nought to be done about it. Let's keep going."

"_Ice Horn!"_

The boys stared at each other momentarily, and then bolted in the direction the Mercury girl's yell came from.

- - -

_The dream was back, even more agonizing and pleasurable than before.__ So wrong…it felt so completely wrong, being handled in that way, feeling calloused hands smoothing over her hips, her belly, even the inside of her thighs…so wrong, but at the same time she couldn't be repulsed by it. Awfully, a part of her that predominated her sleeping self wanted that touch, the touch that felt like sandpaper against wood, that left her feeling so soft afterwards she…_

_And that wasn't the only thing she couldn't prevent. Every time before, the kisses that seemed to flow from the – imaginary? – visitor's mouth had been sweet, almost spooning honey into her own mouth, but __she'd been able to brush some of them off and breathe for a few seconds. Not like now. The kisses were searing, white-hot, and at the same time had the gentle qualities of the love her plants had given her – they were scarring and soothing, disgusting and beautiful, and there was no stopping them. No time to think, no time to breathe. No time to do anything except succumb to the touch of those hands and the fusing of those lips with hers…_

…_nng. So wrong, so right…and…oh gods…was she, one of the Mars, so dizzy from the heat of the dream she could barely move? It felt like she was burning up, devoured by fire from the inside that was fed and fed and fed by the entity that made her so…ohh…_

_A moment of relaxation, of sudden coolness as he moved away, that allowed her to pick up the scraps of thought that were strewn around the dream__. The word…the word for what she was feeling was eluding her, teasingly, encouraging her to reach out for the visitor again and draw him close, running her hands over his back and feeling the ridges of old scars lacerating his skin. It took another kiss for the word to come…_

_Freedo –_

No.

She had nothing to be freed _from_. Except her degrading ca – ca – captivity. That was all from which she needed to be freed. There were no other confines. There was nothing else keeping her from doing what she wanted.

Her fingers clasped around the gold circlet she kept near her pillow while she slept, and as she slowly and carefully sat up she placed it on her brow. She wiped away the few glassy beads of sweat that threatened to spill down her face without so much as a smidgeon of distaste – or indeed any emotion – crossing her features. As for the remainder of her body…well. The cotton sheets she'd slept in would do perfectly well enough for drying off her perspiration. Her unnecessary perspiration.

If there was one thing the Lady had come to hate, it was those sickening dreams. The fact she was unable to control herself when she slept filled her mouth with bitter revulsion; of all the disgraceful things possible, _she_, the Third Lady of Mars, couldn't stop her body from enjoying something so…so…

Carnal.

How could she have not banished such disgusting things from her mind permanently right from the first time she'd suffered that immoral nightmare? And how could she have allowed them to exacerbate? Especially following the humiliating failure of that Seeker's interrogation! The shame of it all! That insolent boy's face…forgetting it was completely out of the question…

"Lady? Are you awake?"

And that would be the lilac-haired woman who had taken her from the Seekers' hideout and almost dragged her across the marshy Angaran scrubland to this dilapidated place concealed by massively overgrown forest and inordinately high mountains. The one referred to as 'Revealer'. Such a ludicrous name; it had to be fake. Just like how the names she had heard during her imprisonment in the Seekers' lair had to be false.

Rapidly pulling off her borrowed nightgown, the Lady brushed the remaining sweat from her body and reached out a hand for the slightly unkempt pile of clothes on the floor next to her mattress. "I'll be ready shortly," was her prim reply. Knowing that the older woman would wait for her no matter how long she took, the Lady took her time dressing, scrutinizing every detail of the clothes that replaced her robes and armour: strange undergarments, a plain cotton shirt, loose leggings, a long skirt that nonetheless gave her plenty of movement, fairly sturdy boots.

She yanked a brush through her loose hair, too, and bound it up into her normal strict ponytail with a hair tie borrowed from the Revealer. Adjusting her circlet, she finally pushed open the door and acknowledged her current jailor with a brisk, yet polite, inclination of her head.

"Would you care for breakfast?" the Revealer queried civilly.

"Not particularly," the Lady replied with equal politeness, carefully turning from the woman and heading for the door that led outside. It was possible to feel a little less…ashamed of herself if she was away from the strange, powerful woman and the seemingly crazy old man who actually lived in this dead town.

Outside, the January air was suitably cold enough for the Lady to properly dismiss the dream and concentrate on her sense of self, drawing up tiny, slender streams of psynergy from within to warm her body. When connected to her powers, she was whole; she was one with what she really was. And she was a Mars Lady. She felt like one. She rippled with the power belonging to one. She wore the circlet.

The town – or rather, what was left of it – resembled little more than a pile of collapsed, splintered timber beams and rubble heaps of varying sizes. During the warmer months, greenery probably flourished in the wreckage, weeds and other plants claiming the forgotten place for themselves, making their own safe haven free of turmoil and disturbance. During this colder time, however, the remnants of the town merely resembled a completely barren, unknown wasteland, with the effect enhanced by the presence of the mountain overlooking the dratted place with its shadow.

It was known as Mount Aleph, according to the old man. A peak that had stood since the beginning of time – or at least since the birth of Weyard.

Much as she hated the fact she was not there of her own volition, the Lady couldn't suppress the unnerving sensation that she was meant to be in the forgotten town – no, rather, that she was meant to be close to the mountain. Something up there on the peak seemed to glow and shimmer with rose-quartz-coloured light even at midday, when the sun was at its highest and strongest. That light…was familiar.

The Lady took all of five minutes to reach the foot of the mountain, following the greyish-blue river upstream to what she presumed was part of its source. Before her was what seemed like the entrance to some kind of temple; an area of surprisingly well-preserved tiles picked out what she supposed was a symbol representing the sun, and two statues (one male, in full armour and bearing a sword, the other female, dressed in some kind of fighting garb completely unlike that of the male) guarded the pair of impossibly tall doors set into the mountainside. Her forehead wrinkled with irritation when she was unable to open the doors.

Perhaps there was another way up to the mountaintop.

A quick scan of the area proved her theory correct. Certainly, the steps hacked out of the mountainside were ancient, and crumbled in places when she put her weight onto them, but they served their purpose very well. The upward journey took barely any time at all…

Admittedly she had to clamber up the last few feet of sheer rock wall, but it was worth it. Even if she'd climbed the mountain solely for the view she wouldn't have regretted it – unless her eyes were playing around, she could see almost the entire continent spread out before her, a breathtaking collage of patchy greens and murky, greyish browns. The citadel was in clear view, the spires of the Mars sector thrusting valiantly into the cloudless sky, the Mercury sector's damp, misty haze rising above the still-bare woodland, and the smattering of purplish thunderclouds above the Jupiter sector betraying the area's humidity. There was Vault; and there, Kalay; the Goma Range hid Bilibin and beyond. Turning her head to look north, the Lady could even pick out the pale blue building that protected Imil…

…she wasn't alone on the mountaintop.

"I was beginning to wonder if you would ever come here."

"Until now I have had no reason to."

"Ah, indeed, Milady. Forgive me."

She snapped her attention away from the silky-voiced man and strode into the centre of the flattened peak. More tiles coated the floor, these ones more eroded than those at the bottom of the mountain. Four plinths sat, equidistant from each other, atop these tiles. Only two were occupied, one by the fairly obnoxious Mercury Adept who, strangely enough, worked for the old man down in the town below. The other occupied plinth supported a marble dragon.

_How beautiful…_ the Lady thought, stepping closer to the stone beast and reaching out a hand to touch its red- and orange-veined hide. Her fingers brushed across the exquisite carving, gently lest she harmed the antique marble. _I have never seen this sort of craftsmanship anywhere…it's so delicate, so finely done…_

"One wouldn't think it used to be human," the Mercury commented in barely more than a whisper, sliding off his plinth and walking over to stand just behind the Mars. Her frown when she turned to face him was of both disapproval and inquisitiveness. "I do not lie, Milady."

She exhaled shortly through her nose. "Impossible. Flesh and bone cannot become marble, and humans cannot become dragons. Common sense rules out such idiotic possibilities."

The man's sly smile was only too noticeable, and something inside her recoiled violently against his words when he spoke. "How similar you are to the last of your status, Milady. And yet, what you say is incorrect. The Mars Clan has long known the secret of human-to-dragon transformation – I have been fortunate enough to see proof of it more than once and survive." He chuckled under his breath, but the Mars girl heard him. "Or perhaps that should be _un_fortunate enough."

"Exactly what trouble you have got yourself into with my Clan is none of my interest." _It may be my business later, though. But now? No. I can't do a thing about…whatever he's done. _The Lady squared her shoulders and strode away from the Mercury man, walking around to the other side of the marble mythical creature and placing one palm firmly against the beast's flank. It seemed to…ripple…beneath her fingers…

"I see." Curt. Cold. "Well. It matters little anyway. My business has never particularly been with you Mars. I have to deal with my own Clan before I…" She disliked the humid, chilling pause that presided while he stirred the air with a hand for words. "…make contact with the others." And suddenly that perturbing silkiness had returned.

She ran her hand along the dragon statue's body to dismiss his words, the skin on her fingertips breaking when she touched the dragon's jagged spines and sword-sharp arrowhead tail. A drop of blood touched the marble; she withdrew her hand sedately and smudged the redness on her fingers with her thumb, leaving bright tracks across her skin. A flash of rosy light made her glance up.

"What in the – !"

Before she could do anything she was flung back, away from the statue and towards the next plinth, by some sort of cruel, ruinous power that emanated from the marble itself.

_Gods, that hurt – and _that's _–_

The dragon glowed – no, pulsed – with light. Reddish-orange jolts of lightning crackled across the great serpent's body; its eyes filled with a dark, scorching scarlet that at once seemed both furious and petrified. Was it just the hallucinations of an angry captive, or did the dragon's head and neck move, casting about, searching, and finally – oh no – finally fixing its garnet-hued eyes on her…?

All of her muscles stiffened. She couldn't stop it, no matter what her mind shrieked in her ear about upholding her status. The gaze – so baleful, so mournful – wouldn't move from her face at all, and unless she really was imagining things, the dragon seemed to be…pleading…

_**Free me from this, girl of my Clan. Destroy the statue! Stop this pain! The Mars – the Empire – it is all wrong! It was never meant to be!**_

"That's preposterous!" the Lady shouted over the roar of the dragon's unleashed power. "The founders did what was in their power – we brought peace to a world torn apart by weakness!"

_**It was not meant to be so! With one Clan wielding such power the world tears at itself to stay balanced! I became disfigured, transformed to this stone beast from my original state, to contain our Clan's contamination!**_

"You are correct, Lady…such words are surely lies…"

_**You! Traitor to your own! You are the source of this! You broke the others and found the remnants of the star that fell to corrupt me, to tempt the Clan of Fire further! All for your own – your own **_**desperation**_** to destroy he who balances the shattered Clan of Water!**_

"Why, you flatter me, Mars Acolyte." He was moving closer to the dragon, oblivious to the catastrophic power surrounding the creature and lifting one arm up to prepare a spell. The Lady could see his face distort into a visage of undisguised contempt as cerulean rings began to surround him, and he whispered a word too quietly for her to hear.

_**A rift can never heal by wanton destruction, you fool…the Lemurian knows that…and if you destroy darkness, light cannot exist…not without harming the world…**_

He smirked, wrapping the hand preparing the spell around one of the dragon's horns. "Believe me, the ancient mariner won't be around much longer."

This time, there was blood.

The Lady gasped at the stinging pain as she felt the blood trickle down the back of her head. It spilled out into a little pool where she lay on the stone, flung there by the sheer immensity of the power the man had released – her back felt badly bruised, and she knew she'd cracked her head against the corner of a plinth. She struggled to roll onto her side, but managed it, coughing more blood out onto the tiles and trying to discern what was going on through her wavering vision. There were lights – massive, blinding flashes of bloody red and cruel blue – and it looked like the dragon was writhing, contorting with pain…

Another series of hacking coughs spat more of her blood onto the mesa. What was in front of her eyes was swimming and distorted, and she could barely feel the cold tiles beneath her body. A spasm of pain tore through her flesh; she couldn't keep herself conscious for much longer…

The little time she had before everything went black was enough to see the man finish the lightshow, turn and glance in her general direction. He spoke, but she was listening and not hearing; she tried to focus on his lips, to make out what he was saying…

Something about manipulation…

- - -

Mariner keeled over. A sudden, sharp pain screamed up his right arm as he smacked into the ground, almost toppling Felix in the process and sending nearby tropical birds screeching into the air from the force of the impact. He felt something hot dribbling down his face when he tried to push himself up and ended up collapsing again because his right arm buckled underneath him. A quick glance at the offending limb told him more than he wanted to know.

"Mariner? _Mariner!_"

"Oh gods…"

Everything was going fuzzy – the panicked voices that reached his ears were little more than disconnected sounds, his surroundings were fast becoming rough smudges of green and brown, and although the maddening pain in his right arm wasn't ceasing he was barely aware that he was lying on the ground at all. _Not good._ He tried to look at his right wrist again but could only see a vague mess of red where he knew the length of ribbon and the knot that kept _him_ bound was meant to be…

Somebody was picking at the knot.

_No._ Despite the delirium he managed to shake his head. _No. Not that. Not that._

"…can't…too tight…" one of the voices said. He couldn't hear what the other one said, but at least they'd stopped trying to undo the knot. He blinked blearily at the unexpected splash of white, spattered with red dots, when it seemed to take something from more green and brown undergrowth. "…sure? You'd better hold him down…"

The one clear sentence made him tense and try to fight, especially when something heavy pinned him to the floor so he could feel it again and he caught a glimpse of light shimmering on steel. _No._ Whoever it was keeping him still yelled something intelligible when he tried and failed to yank his reddened arm away. _No!_ The blade seemed nervous at first when it probed into the gash, but when the second voice told the knife-holder something the knife became less hesitant and dug under the taught fabric that was cutting still deeper into his wrist. _NO!_

And then the pain, and consciousness, was gone.


	18. Knowledge

Well, er, damn. I do believe the last update was in January, wasn't it? …er, January last year. Sorry, guys. A lot of nasty stuff's happened at home, and this school year's been even more of a bitch than the last one. However! New chapter! (this makes me feel _so_ glad that I keep coherent notes and plans of each chapter…and the story as a whole…)

Having recently re-read all of this story, I've noticed some rather heinous spelling mistakes. I'll probably be reuploading several chapters with mistakes removed and (hopefully) separation lines added, seeing as my computer's finally starting to behave properly in regards to them.

Anyway…let's see what's going on with the Seekers, shall we?

Knowledge

Seer quietly thanked the gods that there were only three Mars guards as he whipped his rapier out of its sheath and leapt at the nearest one. The guard hadn't quite prised the last of Wings' icicles out of his arm; not expecting the sudden attack, he stumbled and went down hard, face-first, with the Jupiter boy atop him. Seer hesitated – _to kill or not to kill?_ – and was promptly flung aside by another of his adversaries, crashing into the verdant undergrowth in moments and, he found when he rolled to a stop, getting plenty of scratchy twigs caught in his hair. Gripping the rapier tighter, he sprang to his feet and rocketed back into the fray.

When he got there, he narrowly missed an unwanted collision with Isaac as he aimed for the back of the second guard harassing Wings. He jumped, letting his momentum guide him, smashed the man over the head with his blade's pommel, and skidded to a stop amongst a cloud of yellow dust. Reaching for his psynergy, Seer made a cutting motion with his sword. A gust of wind cleared a pathway through the blinding dust cloud, and, feeling more of his power bubble up from his core and into his body, he darted forward.

This time, the guard was a little more prepared for Seer's attack…

…but not quite prepared for the boy to slam into his torso, yell "Storm Ray!" and cram his opponent full of lightning.

Satisfied the man was completely immobile, Seer left him spread-eagled on the ground and went to aid the others. _Although, truth be told,_ he thought as he watched Isaac deal with his enemy by shoving him up against the nearest tree and throttling him, _I don't think _he_ really needs much help. But…I wasn't expecting him to be so…ruthless_. He'd seen Isaac fight before, of course – against the hydra, on some minor excursions – but in a battle against actual Mars Clan members…

He remembered something from a conversation he'd had with Sheba a few days ago. _"Of course we hate them, Ivan. Wouldn't you if they did so much stuff to you? Thing is, Isaac is Isaac, and his hatred is…refined."_ He'd asked her what she meant. She'd shrugged. _"Hm…it's about as easy to explain as it is to explain about why my brother's the way he is. Don't worry. It'll be useful, sooner or later."_

_If this is sooner_, he thought, _I don't want to think about what later will be like._

Isaac finally let the late guard drop to the floor, and turned to smile at Seer, baring a couple of teeth. "Well, that wasn't too bad," he commented, slightly out of breath. "D'you reckon Wings is done yet?"

Seer didn't even have to reply, instead just nodding in the direction of the Mercury girl trudging uphill towards them. Even from that distance, both boys could see the blood spattered over her clothes and staff.

"She's not much of a fighter, but Angelicals tend to have strong stomachs with regards to blood," Seer said. Exhaling sharply, he gestured in Wings' direction with his rapier. "Kibombo's in that direction anyway, the sky's…" He glanced up. "…clear, for now, and we've got plenty of time before sundown. Let's get a move on."

* * *

…but that had been hours ago. How many exactly they didn't know. What they knew was that the twisty dirt road to Kibombo was infested with guards and powerful, exotic monsters covered in navy blue fur, and that they were incredibly lucky it was a bright night. Blearily swiping grime off her face, Wings didn't bother suppressing a yawn. Just how far was it to Kibombo…?

She paused and stretched for a moment, watching the other two continue walking. With a sigh, she followed in their wake, eyes occasionally drifting to the star-studded sky or the dense jungle (dark, twisted and menacing) they were bound to reach in a little while. _Odd_, she thought after a while, _didn't Mariner say it would only take a couple of hours to reach Kibombo?_ Wincing as the image of Mariner's wrist, dripping with blood, flashed before her eyes again, she bit her lip. _Maybe him getting better…isn't really true? I'm sure the Revealer said he'd been posted in Gondowan before…_

But he'd made such good progress in barely a month! It was as if the amnesia had never happened, as if he'd been the same ever since they'd first brought the trio from the Venus Clan aboard the ship. And since Sheba had found those painkillers, Wings had kept a wary eye on Mariner and hadn't seen him touch a single one. It was…miraculous. Too good to be true. Not even the Great Healers among the Angelicals could produce anything like that.

So she was nervous…

_And_, she contemplated, frowning at Isaac's back, _why's the road crawling with Mars guards? I thought Mariner and the others were going to create a diversion for us, to clear the way…_

It was another twenty minutes before they finally caught sight of the Gondowan town, nestled snugly at the foot of the northern mountains and half-covered with tangled tropical forest. Kibombo was lit up by countless torches; together, the tiny flames produced an orange glow that made what little of the town could be seen appear menacing, casting thick, black shadows across buildings and transforming the massive, bizarre statue at the back of the town into an ugly, horrifying monster. At some point in the past, the statue had meaning. Now that Kibombo was Mars property, it was considered a useless idol.

"Finally!" Seer exclaimed. "I almost thought we weren't going to make it at this rate."

Wings snatched her eyes away from the eerie town. "We're not there yet," she reminded her companion. She caught herself turning her head this way and that. Butterflies churned in her stomach. "We shouldn't celebrate until we get there. Something's…not right."

"Oh. I thought I was gonna be the one to say that," Isaac said. Jupiter and Mercury turned to frown at him slightly. The boy's voice had been…blank. He sighed, glancing back at them. "What happened to that diversion? That's what I wanna know."

"Well…" Wings groped mentally for an explanation. She didn't particularly want her thoughts out in the open, where they'd be vulnerable to Seer's scrutiny and Isaac's increasingly gloomy outlook on the evening. Some worries she had to keep to herself, just as she had hoped to keep some secrets to herself…

Seer shook his head at her poorly-disguised concern. "Let's look at it this way: we're not far from our destination now." He gestured broadly at the fire-lit town down in the valley. "Isn't it better if we manage to get the documents without the diversion being necessary?"

The words hung in the air like slivers of diamond. He didn't need to look at his long-time partner to see the mix of emotions battling it out on her face, instead focusing on Isaac. The Venus boy seemed to consider the idea for a moment, toying with the end of his dusty scarf with a light frown on his features, then shrugged.

"Doesn't make much difference to me. They can take care of themselves – I know _that_ for certain. And it's not like there's anything we can do about it, so…"

With a little shudder as the older boy walked past him on his way down the hill, Seer ran a hand through his mop of hair and flicked his gaze towards the clear heavens. _I really hate it when the other Isaac appears. He makes me wish I'd never opened my mouth in the first place._ Beckoning to Wings, who was still battling with her thoughts and evidently shocked by Isaac's coldness, he began the short trek downwards.

Just like the Angelical girl, he kept seeing Mariner's bloody wrist in his mind. And since he'd been party to Wings' private knowledge of the mystery-shrouded man's life, Seer had started to draw the conclusions his friend was too frightened to make.

Knowing that the diversion hadn't happened didn't bode for good conclusions.

* * *

_Shit. Shit._

Felix's body protested as he dragged Mariner's unconscious form another few feet through the all-encompassing jungle. The path he'd taken was plain to see – ferns and grasses had either snapped or been squashed flat beneath his boots and the comatose man's heavy body – and he knew it was dangerous. The jungle was combed by Mars with infinite precision on a strictly regular basis, and these Mars left no stones – not even the tiniest – unturned, no movement unnoticed, and no tracks un-followed.

The wide channel of jagged broken fern stems, some smeared with blood, was a gift he couldn't afford to give them. But he had no choice in the matter – he was the one with the strength to drag the inert Mariner. Sheba might have grown up in the Venus sector, but she was physically too weak and too small to shift a fully-grown man almost a foot taller than she was and with muscle to spare.

He had to get the leader back to the ship. As darkness had set in, clawing its way across the landscape with insatiable hunger, they'd had no other option. Mariner had shown no signs of awakening for several hours as the sun blazed overhead and made the very air thick and syrupy, and Felix's rudimentary knowledge of healing psynergy wasn't enough to completely stop the bloodflow from the gash on the older man's forehead and the deep slits in his right wrist. They'd torn off strips of their clothes to bind the wounds, but the blood only leaked through over time. It wasn't right. Even they knew that blood clotted.

"Ow – _fuck_ it!"

He'd bashed his head on a low-hanging branch. The gnarled limb leered at him from the shadows when he glared at it. Biting down hard on his lower lip to stop insults and more curses from spewing out, Felix hauled on Mariner's arms again and heaved him another several yards back through the shadowy forest towards the path, before toppling backwards into the ground, hard, courtesy of a black, twisted tree root. Winded, Felix could do nothing for several seconds but stare at the gap in the dense canopy.

Lightning, sharp and blinding, flashed across the night sky.

A smile picked at the corners of his mouth, unwilling to let his pride go without being shown. Sheba was doing well. She'd done well the moment she'd started to practise her psynergy, and especially well once offensive matters had been brought into it, but…still. She was his sister. No matter how capable he knew she was, he'd always be proud of her when she proved it.

Even if he was paranoid that somebody, soon, would read through the ancient legends, think, and uncover the secret he and Isaac had spent so long protecting…

That incident with the lump of stardust had been too close. Far too close. He didn't care; the next time the others wanted to take a daytrip into the Venus mines, he wasn't letting his sister go under _any_ circumstances, no matter how suspicious it looked. To protect this sister, he was going to keep that secret until the day he died.

He was not losing two.

The resolve solid in his mind, he struggled to his feet and heaved at Mariner's bulk again.

* * *

A diversion was a diversion, Sheba had decided, and late was better than never. Of course, this was, technically, an even more important diversion than the (non-existent) original, and as she was alone…well, she _had_ to make it as big as possible, so she did actually have the chance to escape, to dash back through the jungle towards her brother and the ship. Besides that, the other three were doubtless worrying – or, at the very least, Wings would be. Licking her lips and reaching for another tendril of psynergy, Sheba ran the idea through her head again. No. Wings would definitely be worried, if what Sheba recalled about their conversation about painkillers was enough to go by, and would only get worse when she returned to the ship.

If she returned to the ship.

Breathing deep, Sheba felt the psynergy pool in the palm of her hand. It always felt soft, as if a mound of down had settled there and nestled into every callus and line, and it never seemed wrong. She may have come into her powers late, but it was so natural to her she barely noticed. She did chuckle whenever she took off her armlets and saw the Clanless mark on her left forearm, though. The Mars couldn't tell every person's elemental alignment…

She snapped her eyes open and released the psynergy, the name of the spell lost in the tremendous winds that suddenly wracked the landscape, tearing at her hair and clothes indiscriminately. The strength of the gusts forced her eyes shut again as she revelled in the rawness of the power she'd unleashed; when she'd first discovered it, shortly after their arrival in Gondowan, her brother and Isaac had cautioned her not to use much of it, just in case. Letting so much go at once was fantastic.

In the middle of the gale, she found the strength to open her eyes once again and admire her handiwork. She was standing on a cliff above the main road, about a mile or so from Kibombo, and in the starlit night the view was amazing. The wind tore at the forest behind her, occasionally sending whole branches crashing into the undergrowth as they were ripped from their tree trunks. Before her, the dust on the road was whipped up into the air and spread across the panorama. Turning her head, Sheba focused on the town. It had only been visible because of torchlight; under the influence of her windstorm, the lights blinked out.

_That should be enough to get their attention._ Sheba put her fists on her hips and nodded approvingly. _But…well, it could just be passed off as a normal gale. A bit more lightning won't hurt, will it?_

Pursing her lips, she reached for the necessary psynergy. With a little smile, she clapped her hands together and rubbed them forcefully for a few moments. Static crackled between her palms when she pulled them apart.

Sheba settled her shoulders, widened her stance and thrust one hand up into the air.

Once again, lightning split the night sky.

* * *

"You mean you know _nothing_ about the Seekers?"

Garet paced the room that somehow existed at the very bottom of the tree trunk. The 'holy tree' of Kolima was _vast_; it jutted up into the sky for at least a hundred feet, and was so wide that its inside would easily take the palace's infirmary. It was also almost completely hollow, yet somehow still managed to have a number of…well, floors, up and down the inside of the trunk.

In the darkest recesses of the ancient trunk lived a being called Tret. _Well_, Garet thought,_ technically Tret's the entire bloody tree, but for some reason we can only talk to him here._ Sighing, he glanced up at the ceiling. Tret was supposed to be some kind of ultimate source of information on _everything_; that was why Saturos had ordered Jenna and Garet to go there. The First Lord had assumed the old tree would know something about the Seekers.

As Jenna had discovered, he was one hundred percent wrong.

Tret's face wrinkled into an expression of deep sorrow. "Hroom…I'm afraid so. Things tend to pass me by, these days."

"But they've existed for years!" Jenna said, her exasperation clear in her voice. She shook her head. "This is ridiculous. Everyone knows they exist and the trouble they cause. How come you're acting as if this is the first time you've even _heard_ of them?"

"I know of little beyond the river to the south. Perhaps their interests do not lie here?"

Garet carefully kept his back turned and pretended to be interested in some markings on the wall. He really didn't want to catch the brunt of Jenna's irritation. She'd been trying to get information out of the tree spirit – _waelda, or whatever the word is_ – for a good couple of hours now, and her lack of success was obviously getting to her. _Just as well she's an inspector rather than an interrogator. No way would she be able to handle it._ Straightening up, Garet stretched his arms above his head in an attempt to ease the stiffness in his back. _You'd have to be able to turn yourself into a rock if you were an interrogator_. He ran through the thought again, his face and arms falling. His broad shoulders drooped. _…like Kay._

It was nearly two months since she'd been taken by the Seekers – by accident, most eyewitnesses seemed to believe – and Kay's absence was sorely felt in the palace. The First Lady missed her immensely, although she refused to show it in public, and lost her temper more often. Having been on the receiving end of one of her tongue-lashings, Garet couldn't help but feel sorry for Menardi; the woman's anger was much greater, much more bitter than before. Kay had meant a lot to the First Lady. She'd taken the kidnap personally.

Garet had…coped. What was left of his sister had barely recognised him, in those last few days. To be completely honest, it had hurt more during that time than now. He'd known she didn't want to become like the other Lords and Ladies, almost untouchable emotionally, but he hadn't known what to do about it. He'd let it stew, nervous of making a mistake and pushing Kay further from him and closer to becoming a lizard.

And then, once the interrogation of the Venus Seeker had begun…she _went_.

No more Kay. Just the Third Lady.

Even before the Seekers took her, Garet had completely lost his sister. He had lain in his infirmary bed as Jenna told him the news of Kay's kidnap and shed a few tears, partly because his sister had gone but mostly because he'd finally been _told_. It had finally sunk in. He could, at last, accept that which he had wished, begged, _prayed_ to be false. The thing he had desperately wanted to not be true.

His sister was gone.

_No more of that._ It sounded like Jenna had calmed down at last, so Garet turned to look at her and the tree spirit again. Neither was speaking, but Tret's face was festooned with an impressive frown and Jenna was rubbing at the back of her neck. Taking advantage of the conversational lull, Garet ambled over to his friend. A gentle touch on the shoulder made her look up at him. He smiled broadly. "Everythin' okay?"

Jenna rolled her eyes. "If only. This spirit knows nothing of the Seekers."

"For which I am deeply sorry," Tret rumbled. "It sounds most interesting. I shall have to keep a better eye on things in the western part of Angara. Hroom!"

Reaching inside his satchel, Garet rummaged around for a few moments before pulling out the scroll the First Lord had presented him with, a little over two weeks ago. Garet undid the cord that kept it sealed and unrolled the parchment, glancing over their instructions with a frown. He didn't like the fact he'd been made to climb a whole load of trees and then fall down the middle of one for _nothing_. Surely there had to be something they could get out of the old tree…

"Oi, Tret?" he asked after a while, "What do you know about Acolytes?"

The tree spirit hroomed again. "An acolyte is a follower, normally of a religious group. Do you mean to use me as a dictionary, master Adept?"

"Garet!" the guard retorted. "An' I _know _what an acolyte is. It's just…" He frowned at the scroll again, paying more attention as he read over the section on what the Seekers appeared to be looking for. "Uh…okay. The Seekers are looking for information on something called the… Elemental Acolytes. Ring any bells?"

Jenna folded her arms. "You'd better not keep us here any longer than necessary, Garet. I want to be out of this trunk as much as you do." She was not impressed with the uncooperative waelda, and was glaring at Tret balefully as he appeared to think deeply on something. "Well?"

"The Elemental Acolytes were created in the early days of psynergy, when the first Adepts began to appear," Tret said slowly. His frown deepened. Closing his eyes, the tree spirit said nothing for another couple of minutes.

The inspector tapped her foot on the wood beneath her feet. "Get on with it."

Trees cannot shrug, but Tret's facial expression was close enough. "Such a rush. Very well. Hroom!" A few rotting leaves fell from the floor above and landed on Garet. The tree spirit paid him no attention as he struggled to get rid of them. "It is said the Elemental Acolytes were created to balance the power of the elements, long before the Elemental Lighthouses were built, after there was some sort of battle in the early days of Weyard over the control of something with immense power that fell from the heavens. The Acolytes were immensely powerful, and spent all their time focused on mastering their power over their respective elements. When they were ready, they went to the summit of Mount Aleph and became statues; vessels and locks for their elements."

"_Statues_?"

Jenna retained more of her composure than Garet. She fixed Tret with a look that said 'I don't believe you'. "Of course, because humans naturally turn into rocks."

"Marble, I believe," Tret commented, completely ignoring his visitors' disbelief. "But it was then that the elemental upheaval settled and humankind flourished. It allowed them to build the Lighthouses and create their great empires. The Lighthouses held firmly in place what the Acolytes started." He made the shrugging facial expression again. "The Acolytes were still needed, though. They stopped any one element from becoming more powerful than the others."

Garet was shaking his head. "So how come the Mars Clan is so much more powerful than the other Clans, if these Acolytes exist?"

"I did say it was a _legend_, master Adept."

"Garet!"

"But," Jenna said quietly, "aren't legends based on a grain of truth?"

The waelda raised his eyebrows at her. "Indeed. And the end of the legend is that hundreds of years ago, somebody smashed three of the four Acolytes. Would that not explain why your Clan has such power?"

"It would," Jenna replied grudgingly, eyeing Tret with distrust. "But, as you said, it _is_ a legend. And it would mean that the Empire is wrong."

"There are many things wrong with Mars' petty Empire," said the tree spirit. "Whether or not its actual existence is wrong…hroom!" His eyebrows shot up in his face. "Who can say? Legends are legends. In my experience, it is best to at least pay them _some_ attention."

* * *

The Revealer's pen darted across the parchment, leaving a message barely legible. Speed was of the essence, and Seer would be there to interpret her handwriting if necessary…

_Mariner,_

_I made a terrible mistake in bringing the Mars Lady here. Delighted and fascinated with Kraden's new discoveries, I failed to keep an eye on her – and worse, on _him._ The girl went to the summit of Mount Aleph and must have touched the stone dragon, activating it and allowing _him_ to exert _his_ power over it. It must have done something to increase _his_ own power, because _he _came down from the mountain, picked up _his_ bags and left, _his_ job unfinished. And all the while, _his_ face wore a horrible smile._

_If _he_ is strong enough to overcome the binding on him, then I would be very afraid. He is hunting again, Mariner, and we both know what for. Finish your job in Gondowan and return to Atteka as swiftly as you can – at least there you and your squad will be safe, and we can work out a counter-attack plan._

_Whatever you do, you must not return to Angara. I will make my way to Atteka with the Mars Lady at once, and we shall rendezvous in Contigo._

_Revealer_

_**P.S.**__ I beg you, Mariner, to tell me why things are as they are. You are our greatest asset and we cannot afford to lose you. You __**know**__._

* * *

The streets were thick with Mars guards, who all seemed to be running up and down the town and searching houses with an alarming degree of competence. Despite the wind putting all the lights out, the guards had rapidly worked together and lit the torches again; they even carried extras, some of them lit, as they peered into dark corners and shoved their way into houses.

In a natural alcove at the foot of a small cliff surrounding the town, three Seekers huddled together and prayed they wouldn't be found. There was too much light for Cloak to be useful for more than thirty seconds, and they had no idea where they were meant to go. Seer and Wings had both thought that Sheba's distraction would've drawn the Mars guards away – the howling gale the Jupiter girl had whisked up was so crammed full of psynergy it should've drawn guards from all over central Gondowan.

Unfortunately, it turned out that the Gondowan citadel had arranged a night raid on the town of Kibombo, and the guards liked getting their assigned job done before they risked anything as dangerous as investigating the cause of an immense psynergetic storm.

"They knew most of the townsfolk were Seekers," Seer muttered, feeling sick. "Gods…how are we going to get at the information with the town like this? The guards will probably seize the scrolls and put the whole town into lockdown!"

"Keep your voice down," Isaac said. "I dunno about you two, but I really don't wanna get caught here. We've gotta figure something out…"

The two of them continued whispering to each other intently. Wings watched them, uncertain of what to say; somehow, being trapped in the town reminded her horribly of the layers upon layers of snow that had covered her head, once upon a time. There was nowhere to go, and they couldn't move.

She suppressed a shudder. Remembering that had reminded her that…ugh. The second round of shuddering she was unable to control, and she bit down hard on her lip as her body trembled. She wrapped her arms around herself until the shaking passed. Thinking about _him_… of course, yes, she was safe from _him_, but still…

"Pst."

Wings shook her head at herself as the trembling faded. She hadn't been that bad for some time.

"Pst. Hey! You!"

She sat bolt upright, wary. Somebody was trying, very quietly, to get her attention. She let her eyes scan the area. From where she was, she couldn't see anybody in the shadows nearby, and there didn't appear to be anyone near Isaac and Seer. Licking her lips, she turned her head to look over her shoulder.

"Yes, you! Mercury girl!"

Turning round fully, Wings stared at the bare rock. "…hello?" she whispered.

The owner of the voice sighed. "Up here!"

Finally realising where the voice was coming from, Wings looked up. On top of the cliff, a young man – perhaps a bit older than her – squatted, staring down at the three Seekers through dark, scrutinising eyes. Wings could see his face was daubed with paint, and on top of his head perched a mass of red cloth that may have been a turban.

He scowled at her. "Well, get the others, too, girl!" The scowl became a glare when she didn't move for a few seconds. "You're the Angaran Seekers, aren't you? You're late! And _I_ now have to get you to where the scrolls are hidden in the middle of a Mars raid." His eyes hardened yet again when Wings' mouth dropped open at his bluntness. "Get on with it!"

Mouth still open, eyes still fixed on the Kibomban youth, Wings reached out vaguely with one arm and flapped her hand about until she smacked Seer on the shoulder.

"Useless," muttered Akafubu.


End file.
